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

by E. P. Clark

  “Maybe my mother will go join a sanctuary,” said Vladislava. “It would be very good for her, don’t you think, Tsarinovna? They say that at some you’re not allowed to talk for days on end.”

  “I’m afraid the shock would be rather cruel,” said Slava, and then wished she hadn’t when Vladislava laughed spitefully at that thought all the rest of the way to her bedchamber.

  She was finally able to distract Vladislava from her vengefulness by asking her about her favorite dolls. Vladislava promptly stopped her evil chortling and showed Slava a collection of dolls, dresses, and even that most precious commodity in the provinces, books.

  “I would like to be a scribe and make illuminated books, wouldn’t you, Tsarinovna?” Vladislava asked, turning the pages of a very fine book with an eager familiarity that made Slava, who, while having no real concept of money if it was not piled in her sister’s treasury, at least knew the value of a good book, wince. “Perhaps I should go join a sanctuary. They say that some sisters spend all day every day doing nothing but copy and illustrate books.”

  “Their hands must get very tired,” said Slava. “I don’t think it would really be as much fun as it sounds.”

  “I suppose,” said Vladislava. She looked crestfallen for a moment, but then brightened up and said, “I know! Let’s make a book while we wait for Oleg Svetoslavovich to finish knocking some sense into them!”

  “Do you have the things for a book?” asked Slava.

  “Of course I do! Look, paper! And I have ink here too!” And Vladislava pulled out a crumpled wad of paper and a rather bedraggled-looking quill from under an ink-stained desk, whose untidiness was a surprising contrast to Vladislava’s normally neat appearance. She made some vague smoothing motions over the paper, while totally failing to smooth it in any significant fashion, and then sat there, looking at Slava expectantly.

  “What are you going to make your book about?” Slava asked. “A geneology? A map of Lesnograd?”

  “Don’t be so boring, Tsarinovna!” cried Vladislava. “Who would waste paper on something like that?”

  “Oh, lots of people,” said Slava. “So what will your book be about, then?”

  Vladislava stared out her snowy window for a moment, and then said decisively, “Stories. Let’s make a book of stories, like what grandmothers tell, only we’ll make them ourselves. You can start, Tsarinovna, since you’re the guest.”

  “Stories about what?” asked Slava.

  “I don’t know. It’s your story.” When Slava continued to sit there silently, Vladislava said, rather contemptuously, “Don’t you know how to make stories, Tsarinovna? After all, you were just talking to Oleg Svetoslavovich about how you liked to make things up in your head.”

  “I did when I was your age,” said Slava.

  “So why did you stop?” demanded Vladislava.

  “I don’t know…I suppose I just got out of the habit…lost the ability…”

  “You lost the ability to tell stories?” demanded Vladislava, horror-stricken. “It that possible? How did it happen?”

  “I had more important things to occupy my time,” said Slava.

  “That’s stupid!” declared Vladislava. “Like what?”

  “Oh…You know…” said Slava, feeling rather foolish. “My duties…”

  “What duties?”

  “I have to be present at all the meetings of the Princess Council, and whenever the Empress receives petitioners…” Saying it out loud made Slava realize what a feeble excuse it was, and how much she should be ashamed of telling Vladislava such nonsense.

  “Why?” demanded Vladislava. “What do you do there?”

  “I give council,” said Slava, trying, but, she could see, failing, to salvage the situation.

  “That’s no excuse to give up more important things,” said Vladislava severely. “I bet it doesn’t even take up all your time. I bet you could could even make up stories while you were sitting there at council meetings—they couldn’t possibly be very interesting, and no doubt most of the people there are too stupid to say anything worth listening to anyway.”

  Although Slava did in fact while away the tedious hours of most council meetings thinking about other things in order to distract herself from the stupidity of what was being said, long years of training had taught her not to say that kind of thing out loud, and she was also afraid it might be a bad influence on Vladislava, so she only smiled in a vague way that probably did more harm than good.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Vladislava commandingly, giving Slava a look of pronounced disdain, “I’ll start the story, and then you can finish it once you’ve remembered how. I think I’m going to write a story about priestesses. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “Certainly,” said Slava.

  “And leshiye!” said Vladislava, inspired. “I love stories about leshiye, don’t you? I want to meet one someday, don’t you?”

  “I have,” said Slava.

  “Have what?” asked Vladislava.

  “Met leshiye.”

  “Tsarinovna!!” Vladislava actually dropped her quill and shrieked in delight. “You met leshiye?! Lots of them?! Tell me about it!! No, wait—we’ll make our story about it! That will be the best thing ever! A story that’s also a real story about leshiye! Start at the beginning! Why did you meet leshiye?”

  “First I thought I saw things in the woods, but only out of the corner of my eye, and then I had a dream about them, only it turned out it wasn’t just a dream…” Slava began.

  “What kind of a story is that! Tsarinovna! What really happened?”

  “Well…” Slava was so unused to people being anything but bored by the details of what she had done, she had to stop to think about how to organize her thoughts. Before she could pull them together, there was a loud knock at the door.

  “I bet that’s Oleg Svetoslavovich! You can tell him too!” cried Vladislava, scrambling up and running to the door.

  It was, in fact, Oleg Svetoslavovich, who looked distinctly hulking and out of place in Vladislava’s bedchamber. He took a cautious seat on a free chair that had been made for a small girl, and raised his eyebrows at Slava when she suppressed a smile at the sight.

  “Did you knock some sense in them?” asked Vladislava, rather more eagerly than Slava would have liked. “Are they scared now? Do you think they’ll behave?”

  “Probably not,” said Olga, coming in the door without knocking.

  “Oh, Aunty Olga, I didn’t mean you, of course,” said Vladislava, with rather questionable sincerity.

  “Oh, I’m sure,” said Olga, grinning.

  “I threatened them,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, interlacing his fingers and stretching his arms out in front of him ostentatiously, like a man warming up for swordplay under the admiring gaze of his sweetheart.

  “And? Did you shout at them?” demanded Vladislava, her eyes gleaming.

  “Quite loudly,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich with a grin.

  “And? Did it make them shut up?”

  “For the moment,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich, still grinning. “But only for the moment, I fear,” he added more seriously. “Andrey Vladislavovich was quelled, and Vasilisa Vasilisovna was forced to see sense, but only for the moment. No doubt by tomorrow they’ll have forgotten all about it, just as they’ve already forgotten the Tsarinovna’s attempts to make them behave. Even Lisochka—I’m sorry, Olga, but I’m afraid she’s got too much of Andrey Vladislavovich in her. Why didn’t you take a lover and pass off his child as your husband’s? I’m sure we’d all have been grateful.”

  “I’m afraid it didn’t occur to me at the time,” said Olga. “I had no father to guide me, you see, so I foolishly remained faithful to my husband until the damage had been done.”

  “True enough,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. Lisochka is what she is, and my sole consolation is that only a quarter of her blood is mine. The quarter that seems to be asleep, alas. Do y
ou think there’s any hope for her? The way she whined and then backed down, like a beaten dog…”

  “It was a disgusting sight,” agreed Olga. “My own flesh and blood…”

  “I can’t believe she’s my sister,” put in Vladislava. “Even my second-sister. She’s pathetic!”

  “Well, maybe she has reason to be!” interjected Slava hotly. “Raised as she’s been…Maybe I should invite her to Krasnograd, not just as a visitor, but as my ward,” she added. “She’s old for it, but…or I could take her on as a highborn maid, like those who serve my sister. It is a position of great honor—she might agree.”

  “No!” cried Vladislava. “Just when I’m about to escape!”

  “It’s only right. Olga is my ally, and I’ve already invited you,” said Slava. “And Krasnograd is very big, after all. You wouldn’t have to see each other very often, if you didn’t want to.”

  “She might not go, even if you asked her, Tsarinovna,” pointed out Olga. “She can be stupidly difficult like that.”

  “Perhaps,” said Slava, and decided to stop talking about it. Although it was true that Lisochka had not made a very favorable impression on her so far, the obvious antagonism of her own mother and second-sister, and the clear neglect of her father and aunt, made her feel terribly sorry for her. Slava wanted to think that all Lisochka really needed was a chance to learn how to behave properly. She had to admit to herself that that might not be enough, but, she told herself, there was no harm in trying.

  She returned her attention to Olga and Oleg Svetoslavovich, who were commiserating with each other over the scene they had just witnessed. They both were aware that Olga had been an important part of that scene, but neither of them seemed bothered by that now, and in fact they both laughed heartily when Olga repeated some of the unkind things she had said to Andrey Vladislavovich. Vladislava, to Slava’s sorrow but not surprise, laughed heartily too, and with a good deal more cruelty in her eyes.

  From what was said, Slava gathered that Oleg Svetoslavovich had gone into the room and shouted harsh words at everyone until he caught Olga’s attention by saying he was ashamed to have her as a daughter, if this was the kind of petty squabbling she was constantly stooping to. This had made Olga stop quarreling with Andrey Vladislavovich and, after laughing for some time, turn on the others and join Oleg Svetoslavovich in his shouting. He had said every shocking and unpleasant truth he could come up with, until Vasilisa Vasilisovna, Andrey Vladislavovich, and Lisochka had all been reduced to quivering wrecks, unable to speak a word in their defense. Slava didn’t know whether to be terribly guilty that she had let such a thing happen, or terribly glad that she hadn’t been in the room when it had, and so settled for a general state of unhappiness.

  “It won’t last, though,” said Olga with a sigh. “It never does. You’d think people with no spines would be easier to beat down, but on the contrary…”

  “Well, at least we’ve gotten ourselves some peace for a few hours,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Let’s use it to go see the city, shall we? You should survey your domain.”

  “I thought we were going to plan…” said Slava, but was interrupted by Vladislava jumping up eagerly and crying, “I’ll show you!”

  “No, little princess, you’ve already been out once today already, and without permission at that,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich. “Don’t you have…lessons and things? Instruction on how to be a princess?”

  “Grandmother was overseeing all that, but she dismissed everyone shortly before…and no one’s done anything about it since then…”

  “And I’m sure you made sure not to remind them of it,” said Oleg Svetoslavovich with a laugh.

  “No! I asked them and asked them!” said Vladislava, looking highly offended, with a suddenness that made even Oleg Svetoslavovich pause. “I asked every day until they told me to shut up and stop bothering them, they had more important things to worry about!”

  “What kind of lessons did you have?” Slava asked, before Vladislava could start crying or screaming, as, judging by the look on her face, she was threatening to do. “Perhaps I could help you—be your tutor. It would be fun.”

  “What do you know about being a princess?” Vladislava demanded.

  “Oh, this and that,” said Slava. “And I also know much of law, ancient lore, courtly etiquette, the histories of the great families, the founding of Kransograd, the unification of Zem’…not to mention dancing, and dressing, and riding, and embroidery—including magical symbols—and music, and the languages of the lands along the Middle Sea, and even a little of battle strategy and the stewardship of great estates. And of course I can do sums and write with quite a fair hand. What would you like to learn?” Olga and Oleg Svetoslavovich, Slava noticed out of the corner of her eye, both looked quite impressed at her list of accomplishments, which made her sorry she had listed them off like that. Oleg was, after all, of peasant stock, even if he had been rubbing shoulders—and rather more than just shoulders—with princesses for years, and Olga was, for all her Severnolesnaya name, hardly much better. Both of them could read, after a fashion, but neither of them could do much more than that, Slava was sure. Sometimes she forgot that other people tended to think she was bragging when she told them of her store of knowledge, and that they could get very sulky about it.

  “Battle strategy!” cried Vladislava, her eyes gleaming again. She, at least, did not seem to think that Slava was bragging. “No, the embroidery of magical symbols…no, battle strategy…”

  “Does the kremlin have a library?” asked Slava. It seemed likely that their earlier plans to plan their strategy to deal with the Lesnograd intrigue had gone out the window anyway, so if she could find the kremlin’s library, the day would not be a total loss.

  “Oh yes! Why didn’t I show it to you earlier!”

  “Then let us go to it now, and we can see what books you have. Perhaps you even have Miroslava Praskovyevna’s treatise on war—she gave a copy to all the great families before her death, and the Severnolesniye are descended from some of her closest allies when she was conquering the North, as well as being blood kin in their own right from later marriages.”

  “Wouldn’t be very old, though? Wasn’t that centuries ago?”

  “Well, at least two,” Slava agreed. “I wouldn’t dare touch the original, it case it fell apart. But your scribes might have made copies.”

  “What if they didn’t?” asked Vladislava, suddenly crestfallen at the thought. “What if it’s not there at all?”

  “Then we’ll just have to settle for the embroidery of magical symbols,” Slava told her.

  “That would also be useful,” said Vladislava thoughtfully. “Can you use them to curse your enemies?”

  “Yes, but only if you can trick them into putting on the clothes you made for them…”

  “Even so! Let’s go, Tsarinovna!” And, with the briefest of nods to Olga and Oleg Svetoslavovich, Vladislava took Slava by the hand and led her out of the bedchamber at a very brisk walk that in anyone other than a princess would have been a skipping run. Olga and Oleg Svetoslavovich let them go with no talk of planning at all. It seemed Slava was the only one who remembered, but, she suddenly wondered, perhaps Oleg Svetoslavovich didn’t want to speak of it in front of Olga, who was, it seemed, about to come into the rule of Lesnograd…Surely this was all just nonsense, Slava told herself. Probably a visit to the library would be the most fruitful way for her to spend her time anyway.

  The Lesnograd library was at the other end of the kremlin, and separated from Vladislava’s bedchamber by so many twisting corridors that Slava began to worry she would never be able to make it back to the habitable parts of the fortress, should Vladislava take it into her head to abandon her. At the moment, though, Vladislava showed no such inclination, and instead quizzed Slava closely about battle strategy all the way down, until Slava began to regret having brought it up at all. She had, of course, studied battle strategy in her youth, as any good Tsarinovna should, but
as it had held absolutely no fascination for her whatsoever, much of what she had learned had leaked out of her head or been buried under more interesting information since then. Even when she had been studying it actively, she had shown an unusual lack of ability in it, confounding her tutors, who had, despite the rumors that were already circulating about the younger Tsarinovna’s tendency to hysteria, come to expect nothing but the most remarkable quickness of understanding from her. In fact, it was the only thing she had ever quarreled with them about: when they had demanded to know what she would do, should she suddenly find herself commanding armies against hostile forces, she had said, “Find someone competent to do it for me.” Her tutors had been highly offended and reported the incident to her mother, but her mother had only laughed and said that those were the words of a true strategist. Then she had pulled Slava aside and whispered to her that a true strategist also knew how to escape from a disadvantageous situation as quickly as possible, and if that meant deception or trickery, such as feigning an interest or competence one did not feel, so be it. Slava wondered if perhaps she should share that thought with Vladislava.

  The library was a large room, but so stuffed with books and scrolls, and so lacking in lamps, as to appear rather cramped.

  “How do you find things here?” asked Slava, looking around at the jumble of old papers.

  “Oh, there’s a system,” said Vladislava. “Kseniya Marusyevna knows where everything is.”

  “Where is Kseniya Marusyevna?” asked Slava.

  “Visiting her second-sister in the country,” said Vladislava. “Grandmother sent her away after they quarreled.”

  “Oh,” said Slava.

  “Grandmother quarreled with a lot of people before her attack, didn’t she?” said Vladislava. “Do you think there was a reason?”