by E. P. Clark
Slava debated for a breath whether telling or not telling Anastasiya the story would be more distracting, but decided that not telling her would be worse, and so gave her a brief outline of Andrey Vladislavovich’s story, including his denial of having brought any harm to the villagers, in case Anastasiya could bring any enlightenment to that part of the tale.
“You see!” said Anastasiya triumphantly. “Vanity! Vanity made the girl go after him, and vanity made the other man go after her, and vanity made her leave him, and vanity made him go after her, and probably vanity made one of his men burn down the village when they failed.”
“Yes,” said Slava. She thought that was probably too simple an explanation, but instead of arguing, said, “Vanity is a terrible vice.”
“Yes, and the old princess had more than her share of it!” said Anastasiya, which was just what Slava had hoped she would say, because it launched Anastasiya into more stories about the old princess.
“But she got her comeuppance in the end, didn’t she?” said Anastasiya. “Stricken down just as she was trying to cast her biggest curse. Of course she couldn’t wield any magic on her own, but she liked to think she could, or that she was helping just by being there, anyway, so she always insisted on being in the room whenever any of us were doing anything, troublesome as that was, she wouldn’t take no for an answer, and so of course she was there when they were trying to cast a tricky and dangerous spell, and we see how that turned out, don’t we? I wasn’t there, of course, I wouldn’t have anything to do with it, the others knew better than to ask me to take part in something like that, they know I won’t soil my hands with that kind of thing, but they’ve talked of nothing else since then, and of course I knew more or less what they were doing at the time, too. They were trying to curse Krasnograd—the Imperial family, that is—but that’s a dangerous business, Krasnograd and its family are protected by powerful spells of their own, even if it’s down in the South, but they were trying to curse Krasnograd, only they say that instead a cold wind rose up and spoke to them, and the old princess collapsed in a fit, and that was the end of that spell, wasn’t it, and good riddance! They still don’t know whether the curse worked, though—maybe it took effect anyway, they can’t tell yet.”
“How will they know?” asked Slava.
“Well, they say the Empress was supposed to be betrayed by the person closest to her, so I suppose if we hear of any betrayals, we’ll know.”
“Did they say how this betrayal would manifest itself?” asked Slava.
“That’s the thing with curses, you can’t know beforehand. They run downhill, just like water. Who knows what the Empress would consider betrayal? It wouldn’t have to be something so simple as selling secrets to an enemy, you know, it could be something else—something someone in her family or her guard did, for example, or betrayal by a lover—who knows? But I heard that it was supposed to be more dangerous than betrayal by a lover. Something that would strike at the very foundations of her rule, that’s what the old princess wanted. She never was very fond of the old Empress, the old princess wasn’t, but at least she thought she could rule, which was more than she would say for the new Empress, although I don’t know—maybe she just doesn’t like her because the new Empress refused to grant her more land. The old princess wanted to extend her territories up into the Midnight Land, claim everything up in the tundra, but the Empress said no, and the old princess’s taken a terrible dislike to her ever since.”
“I see,” said Slava.
“Yes, and then there was the terrible fight with Olga Vasilisovna, because she was determined to go, wasn’t she? She said she had to go to the Midnight Land, didn’t she, and nothing would stop her, and she didn’t care whom she claimed it for, her mother or her Empress, so when the Empress said the old princess couldn’t have the land, the old princess said Olga Vasilisovna couldn’t go, and so what did Olga Vasilisovna do? She went straight to the Empress, didn’t she? She went straight to the Empress and she got permission to go and map out the territory for the Empress and not her mother, and you can imagine how that news was received here. And then the old princess got the idea of cursing the Empress, she was so angry, she wanted the Empress to suffer like she had, only it didn’t work for her, did it? She was struck down instead. Magic isn’t a well, you know. You can’t just draw from it whenever you want, however much you want to. Magic is a mighty torrent, a raging river, and you step in at your peril. But the old princess didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t believe there was anything she couldn’t control, and magic was just another lapdog for her. Only even lapdogs can bite, if you step on them.”
“Yes,” agreed Slava. “I wonder…”
“Yes?” said Anastasiya eagerly. She had clearly forgotten her earlier antagonism, and, now that she had poured out everything that was pent up inside of her into Slava, she was feeling kindly disposed to her, almost tender, even. Like a lover, Slava thought to herself, and suppressed a grin.
“I wonder…has anything been done to…to reverse the curse? Is that even possible? I know so little about magic, you see.”
“Oh, that’s a dangerous business, reversing curses. Well, of course, you wouldn’t want to reverse it, because then it would just come rushing back onto you—like damming a flood and having it flood you instead—you’d want to stop it, only it’s difficult. Difficult and dangerous. You’d want to dissipate it, you see, spread it out so that it became too weak to have any effect, but like as not you would reverse it, you would make it pour right back onto you, which is what must have happened to the old princess, only the question is, did she get all of it, I mean, did the whole force of the curse come back on her, or was there still enough left over to affect the Empress. I guess we’ll find out.”
“I suppose so,” said Slava.
“And now I don’t know what I’m going to do,” continued Anastasiya. “I can’t stay here, none of us can, not till we know what’s going to happen to the old princess and what the new princess will be like. Everyone’s afraid that the curse will come back on them, you see, and they think that leaving Lesnograd will help protect them. Even I—I only gathered some herbs for it, you know, I didn’t have anything to do with it at all, not really, but I’ve only been here a few hours and I’m already thinking that I should leave, I can feel the curse hovering over me, I shouldn’t be here. The curse doesn’t know that I didn’t have anything to do with it, all it knows is the touch of my hand on those herbs, and it’s marked me, not as much as those who cast it, of course, but it’s still marked me. And I can’t go to Krasnograd, none of us can, because the curse will be waiting for us there, too. And I can’t stay with the others, I can’t stand it, we’ve done nothing but quarrel since we arrived, quarrel and point fingers, and I don’t want to have anything to do with that anymore, especially since I didn’t have anything to do with the problem, I don’t want to be punished for something I didn’t do, so I have to leave, and the others don’t want me there anyway, I make them feel bad, I’m always reminding them of what they did wrong—and someone should! They should feel bad, and I’m not afraid to tell them that! But I can’t stay with them any more, and I can’t stay here in Lesnograd, and I can’t go to Krasnograd…”
“Perhaps Pristanograd or Vostochnoye Selo?” suggested Slava.
“You think so? Do you think they’d take me in there? Those Western barbarians—what do they know about magic?”
“Very little, it seems, which means you would be all the more valuable,” said Slava. “And Princess Primorskaya would love to take in someone who had been cast off by Princess Severnolesnaya, I’m sure of it. Only I would be careful around her, if I were you. She strikes me as a formidable woman.”
“Oh, after Princess Severnolesnaya, I’m not afraid of anyone else, I can assure you,” said Anastasiya, cheering up. “Do you really think…Vostochnoye Selo…I suppose I don’t have any place better to go.” She stood up. “You’re right, you know! I should go there. I should leave right a
way.”
“No doubt you are right,” said Slava. “I won’t keep you, then. Thank you for speaking with me.”
“Oh…Of course…” said Anastasiya, obviously already thinking about Vostochnoye Selo. She gave Slava a sketchy bow and left without bothering to thank her for the tea.
“She was very odd, wasn’t she?” said Vladislava, as soon as Anastasiya was gone. “She wasn’t very polite, was she?”
“No, but she gave us a good deal of useful information,” said Slava. “Much more than she would have had she been polite.”
“And she was very arrogant, wasn’t she? But not very happy.”
“Yes,” said Slava. “The danger of being very clever, but not quite as clever as you think you are.”
“Really?” asked Vladislava, looking impressed. “I never thought about that before. What useful information did she give you?”
“Oh…This and that…” said Slava, unwilling to discuss the curse in front of Vladislava.
“It was about the curse, wasn’t it?” said Vladislava, with the look of someone who had been struck with a sudden realization. “But you don’t want to talk about it in front of me.”
“Well…” began Slava.
“Why don’t you want to talk about it in front of me? You’d be much better off talking about it to me than you would to mother, you know, or even Aunty Olya—she doesn’t care much for that kind of thing, and she wasn’t there, you know, and I was.”
“Yes…” said Slava.
“It was even my idea, you know!”
“Yes…” said Slava again.
“Is that why you don’t want to talk about it with me? Because it was my idea?” demanded Vladislava.
“Well…” said Slava, wondering how Vladislava could be so quick and so slow at the same time. Although, she reminded herself, the same could be said about her much of the time too. “It is a very delicate business,” she said instead. “The fewer people who know about it, the better. And you…you really shouldn’t tell people it was your idea. That would be a bad thing for others to know.”
“Because it would be dangerous?” said Vladislava, once again with the look of someone who had been struck with a sudden realization.
“Very dangerous,” Slava told her. “Especially if it became known in Krasnograd. That would be very dangerous indeed.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Slava told her. “Although after what Anastasiya said, I’m beginning to wonder how safe Lesnograd is as well.”
“Because you think the curse might have come back here, like Anastasiya said? You think…You think it might come back on me, don’t you?”
“Possibly,” Slava admitted.
“After all, Anastasiya was afraid of it, and she only gathered herbs for it! But it was my idea.”
“Yes,” said Slava. “I don’t know what that means, for curses.”
“But Krasnograd might be dangerous for me too, then.”
“Yes,” said Slava. “I don’t know.”
“Well, why didn’t you ask Anastasiya about it?” demanded Vladislava. “We could go ask her right now, you know—she can’t have left yet. She’s probably still in the kremlin. She’s probably gone back to the kitchens.”
“The fewer people who know about it, the better,” said Slava. “If she doesn’t know about it, we shouldn’t tell her. We shouldn’t even talk about it. The less said about it, the less likely it will be to come back on us, I would think.”
“But she might know something!”
“Vladislava.” Slava sat down in front of her and looked at her seriously. “I’m not angry at you—but do you know what you’ve done? Many would consider it treason, do you know that? So it must be a secret, do you understand? A secret that no one can ever know. Just you and me.”
“And grandmother,” put in Vladislava.
“Well, let us hope she won’t say anything about it either,” said Slava. “But, Vladislava, this is very, very important. No one can ever know. I don’t know if you are in any danger from it returning on you now, but if anyone ever found out about it, you would be cursed for sure, a more terrible curse than you could possibly imagine. Do you understand?”
“I suppose,” said Vladislava, squirming slightly in her seat.
“And do you promise never to tell anyone? Do you promise to keep it a secret?”
“I suppose,” said Vladislava again, squirming even more.
“I need you to do more than suppose,” said Slava. “I need you to promise. Do you promise?”
“Yes! I promise!” Vladislava burst out, and then screwed up her face and turned away from Slava.
“Oh…” said Slava, and tried to put her arms around Vladislava, but Vladislava pushed her away.
“I’m not angry with you, you know,” Slava told her.
“Yes you are! You hate me, just like everyone else does!”
“No, no, I just need you to promise, that’s all. I don’t hate you. I’m not angry with you, either. I just needed you to promise, that was all.”
“But you were angry with me!” sobbed Vladislava. “I could tell!”
“I’m sorry,” Slava told her. “I just needed you to promise, in order to protect you, do you understand, Vladislava? I needed to protect you. And I will protect you, just like I promised, only I needed you to promise to help me, that was all.”
“Really?” said Vladislava, raising her face and giving Slava a suspicious look.
“Really,” said Slava.
“What if you need to protect someone else?” asked Vladislava.
“Like whom?” Slava asked.
“Like…I don’t know…What if Lisochka comes with us, and you need to protect her?”
“I can do both,” said Slava.
“But what if you can’t? Or what if…What if you have your own daughters? What will happen to me then?”
“Nothing,” Slava promised, trying not to squirm herself.
“I don’t believe you,” said Vladislava.
Slava considered several possible responses to that, all of them, she could tell, much too angry, before finally saying, “Well, you’ll just have to watch me and see. You can remind me if I start to fail.”
“That sounds fair,” said Vladislava, after thinking it over. “When are we leaving for Krasnograd? Don’t we need to go soon?”
“Are you so eager to leave Lesnograd?” asked Slava, smiling.
“Of course I am, but that’s not why I asked,” said Vladislava, rolling her eyes at Slava’s stupidity. “Anastasiya said that the curse could have made its way to Krasnograd by now! Don’t we need to be there, in case we can stop it?”
“True enough,” agreed Slava. “And there is little holding us here now. I will speak with Olga about this.”
“Oh good! I’m going to start packing right away!” And Vladislava, apparently forgetting—although Slava was sure she had not actually forgotten—all about her momentary mistrust of Slava, got up, threw her arms around her, and then left the room, skipping slightly.
Slava also got up and set off in search of Olga. She found her in the Great Hall, with Vasilisa Vasilisovna. Vasilisa Vasilisovna was sitting on the throne, rather uncomfortably, and Olga was sitting beside and slightly behind her in a somewhat menacing fashion. Dima stood in the back of the hall, looking as if he wished he were somewhere else, the tundra for example. He brightened at the sight of Slava, and slipped away from his position in the corner, leaving Olga and Vasilisa Vasilisovna to give contradictory and confusing orders to the poor expedition they seemed to be sending off to investigate Andrey Vladislavovich’s and Mirik’s opposing claims.
“How goes it?” Slava whispered to Dima.
“Poorly, Tsarinovna,” he whispered back. “Olga has many virtues, but patience for the tedium of rule is not one of them, much less patience for the tedium of counseling the ruler. She and her sister have done nothing but quarrel all morning, and in front of their subjects, too. I fear that something bad will h
appen soon.”
“Yes,” said Slava. “One reason among many I wish to leave Lesnograd as soon as possible. Which is why I came to speak to Olga, in fact.”
“Leave Lesnograd?” Dima brightened up even more. “And do you think Olga will come with you? Do you think she can come with you? With the old princess still hovering between life and death, there is no one to rule but Vasilisa Vasilisovna, and it becomes ever more apparent that she is not fit to run a waystation, let alone a vast territory.”
“Is Olga any more fit?” asked Slava.
“No,” admitted Dima. “But she gives the appearance of being more fit, which is all many people need. At least she acts like a ruler, even if her actions are often unwise.”
“True,” said Slava. “But Vladislava and I need someone to escort us back to Krasnograd. Someone who is not only capable, but of noble birth. We couldn’t possibly be entrusted to a party of soldiers—my sister would take it as a terrible insult, and it would be just the excuse she needed to wreak some kind of revenge against the Severnolesniye. Olga may have to take on the duty herself, as there is no one else in Lesnograd capable of doing it.”
“True, Tsarinovna, true,” said Dima, grinning. The sound of raised voices from the raised dais caused the grin to slide off his face. Both he and Slava looked over, to see that Olga and Vasilisa Vasilisovna had risen from their seats and were arguing vehemently, with no thought of the party of soldiers fidgeting uncomfortably in front of them.
“We should leave soon,” said Slava.
“Very soon,” agreed Dima.
“I would leave tomorrow, if I could,” said Slava.
“As would I, Tsarinovna,” said Dima. “But I fear we may be stuck here until they get to the bottom of this mess with Andrey Vladislavovich. If only Oleg Svetoslavovich were still here! He told me before he left only that he had a duty to perform, one that he couldn’t put off any longer, and that he had to go. He seemed to be dreading it, as much as a man like him can dread anything. Do you know what that duty was, Tsarinovna?”