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

by E. P. Clark

  “Yes,” said Slava.

  “Some of them are from fire,” said Princess Severnolesnaya.

  “Yes,” said Slava. “I saw.”

  “Some fathers don’t deserve their sons,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “Or their daughters, or their wives, or the dogs who follow in their footsteps and won’t even hide from the kicks aimed their way. The gods only know what Oleg would have been with a different father.” She stopped to catch her breath and smile. “Well, he wouldn’t have been Oleg, for a start. But you know what I mean. He was trained to grovel and beg, Tsarinovna, from an early age that was what he was trained to do. And even though that’s not his nature, that’s what makes him happy now. Why do you think he married me, after all? And now this…thing with you. He feels safest with people who can pull his strings so hard his arms snap. Which is why he has to run away all the time. Because half of him knows that he doesn’t need any more scars, and half of him wants to add to the collection. So he’s always running away from someone who can give him scars, straight into the arms of someone who can scar him even more. I take it he ran away from you?”

  “Yes,” said Slava.

  “I wonder when he’ll run away from the gods who think he serves them? Maybe someday he’ll realize he needs someone to protect him.” She stopped to catch her breath and smile again, this time painfully. “Someone better at it than I was. Oleg doesn’t know this, but after I saw those scars, I sent soldiers to his home. I wanted to send his father to the road crews. I wanted him to learn what it was like to grovel and beg and like it. But when they got there, the villagers had already driven him away. He had picked a fight with someone’s husband, you know, and half-killed him, so they drove him out. He could half-kill his own little boy all he wanted, and everyone knew it had been no accident when his wife had gone out into the woods one fall and come back the next spring as nothing but bare bones, but when he raised his hand against a grown man, that was too much. Then they decided he was a danger, and drove him away. Only then.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Slava. She thought tears might be leaking out from under Princess Severnolesnaya’s closed eyes. She thought tears might be about to start leaking out from her eyes, too.

  “Well, he got away in the end,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “He had enough fire in him that even his father couldn’t beat it out of him. And your daughter will no doubt be much the same.”

  “If she’s going to set the world on fire, she’ll have to have a fair amount of inner flame,” said Slava.

  “And do you think the world needs to be set on fire, Tsarinovna?” asked Princess Severnolesnaya.

  “Sometimes I think it needs to be burnt down to the ground,” said Slava. “Only I worry about the little animals and children that could get caught in the conflagration.”

  “Of course you do,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “Well, your daughter will most likely have inner flame and to spare.”

  “I’m glad,” said Slava.

  “You’ll be less glad once you get to know her,” said Princess Severnolesnaya, opening an eye to give her a stern look. “I learned that from experience, with Olga. If Oleg was anything like she was, I half-pity his poor father. Oleg always feared he’d end up like him, you know. He’s certainly hotheaded enough. But you seem to have a fair amount of fire yourself, Tsarinovna. You will need it, once your daughter comes, should she have the good fortune to be born. The gods have plans for her, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Slava.

  “They think to use her to gain a foothold in the world of women. But swords often have two edges, Tsarinovna.”

  “They do,” agreed Slava.

  “It could just as easily be that your daughter will be a foothold amongst the gods for the world of women.”

  “Have you seen it?” asked Slava.

  “Perhaps.” Princess Severnolesnaya closed her eyes. “I saw many things…Who knows how many of them will come true…But the curse…”

  “Yes?” said Slava, drawing closer. For a moment she was afraid that she had frightened the old princess into silence, but Princess Severnolesnaya, after gathering her strength once more, continued, “The curse. Will work through you.”

  “No!” cried Slava.

  “Yes,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. She opened her eyes, and, clutching Slava’s hand with surprising force, stared at her intently. “You will bear the curse back to Krasnograd, Tsarinovna.”

  “With the child?”

  “Yes,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “You saw it before it ever happened, on your ride through the forest. You bear the evil inside of you, and you will bear it back to Krasnograd, whether you will it or no. For, you see, little Tsarinovna, you, like Lisochka, like Oleg, were cursed at birth. Cursed with your sister’s hatred. A daughter will only compound the problem.”

  “It’s not too late!” cried Slava. “I can still stop it!”

  “You can stop it this time, Tsarinovna,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “But it will stop nothing. If you do not have this daughter, that only means that it was not fated to happen this time. But it will still happen. And you will still bear the curse back to Krasnograd, whether you will it or no, because the very breath in your body is a curse in your sister’s eyes. You may think that we started the curse this fall, and it is true, we did, but it truly started many years before that, at your birth, or even earlier. Who can say how much of what happened this fall in Krasnograd was our doing, and how much was yours—yours and your family’s. As soon as we started, my sorceresses said that Krasnograd was already so cursed, anything we did was likely to prove superfluous, or to snap back in our faces like a rope cut under strain. As it did, and as it will continue to do. I saw much in my dreaming, little Tsarinovna. From now on until it runs its course, every move you make will work to bring the curse about. Cast the child from your body before it takes root inside of you, and you will undo your bargain with the gods. Bring it back to Krasnograd, and your sister will turn against you even more than before. All acts are for evil where there is evil, and what is more evil than the hatred of sister for sister? Or more common.”

  “Stop it!” begged Slava. “Stop the curse!”

  “I cannot, no more than I can regather spilled water from an overturned bucket.”

  “But what can I do?” cried Slava.

  “Nothing.”

  “No! I cannot do nothing!”

  “Sometimes nothing is what we must do. Tsarinovna.” Princess Severnolesnaya paused to swallow and regain her strength. “There is more to curses than evil, you know. Good comes of them as well. Sometimes you must just plunge into them and swim through the evil, until you come out to the good on the other side.”

  “But…”

  “No,” said Princess Severnolesnaya. “There is nothing either of us can do. The more you try to stop it, the faster you will bring it down upon you. Now…” But her strength failed her, and her eyes closed. Slava waited for some time, but they did not reopen.

  Baba Vlastya came up to her. “Best leave now, Tsarinovna,” she said. “There’s no point in staying. She won’t be saying anything more.”

  “I am sorry,” said Slava.

  “It is not your doing, Tsarinovna. The gods are unkind to us all.”

  “I’m still sorry,” said Slava.

  “You have a kind heart, Tsarinovna,” said Baba Vlastya. “Even the gods can’t take that away.” She bowed, and Slava, feeling there really was nothing more she could do there, left.

  ***

  She returned to her room and sat there for some time in a daze. Was Princess Severnolesnaya telling the truth? Was Slava bearing the curse back to Krasnograd, as she had said and as Slava had seen on her ride through the forest? Was the daughter she had supposedly conceived harboring the seeds of evil within her? It was not too late, Slava reminded herself. She could go to an herbwoman and ask for something to stop the child from taking root inside her. Moldy rye was painful, Slava knew all too well…but not as painful as
the alternative…How many women died in agony, trying to bring a child into the world…She thought of Lisochka, who never should have been born, and all the suffering that had been caused and would continue to be caused because Olga had been forced to bear her…But Princess Severnolesnaya had also said that that would not help anything…Slava found herself burying her face in her hands…Every way forward seemed bad…The gods wanted to use her…The curse wanted to use her…She was helpless once again…She felt as if a sword were hanging over her head…A double-edged sword, one that would cut her no matter what she did…

  Pick up the sword, then, you fool, said a voice in her head. Your enemy’s weapon is only your own weapon, you just haven’t taken it from her yet. And a double-edged sword cuts both ways.

  “Yes!” cried Slava, jumping to her feet. “A double-edged sword cuts both ways!”

  You just have to grab it by the hilt, you fool, instead of constantly trying to pick it up by the blade, and then crying when you cut your hand, continued the voice in her head.

  “Yes!” said Slava again. Her whole body was tingling with excitement…She could see herself taking the sword by the hilt…She remembered how many times she had been asked if she had wanted to take up this burden, and every time she had said “yes,” and most emphatically…So many times before she had had the possibility of having a child, and every time she had refused, and known that she had done right, because…because it had all been leading up to this moment, this child, should she have the good fortune to be born…Now was the time, the culmination of everything she had been waiting for, all the misery and suffering she had undergone, now was the time for her to say “yes,” just as she had to Oleg back in the cabin. Now was finally the time. She was not Olga, a helpless little girl being used against her will, she was a grown woman who had chosen to fulfill her destiny of her own free will. She was running towards this, not away from it, which is why she had nothing to fear from any curse…

  Just then there was a knock on her bedroom door, followed closely by Olga, who came bursting in uninvited.

  “We’re leaving,” she announced abruptly. “Tomorrow.”

  “What about the others?” asked Slava. She was still tingling all over, and the words she had heard in her head were still standing before her as if hanging in the air, but somehow she still had so much strength left over that she found it easy to turn her attention to Olga, even as she continued to make plans for her own future.

  “Well, my father has run off and left us already, hasn’t he? Mirik is going home, he says, and good riddance—he’s been nothing but trouble from the moment we first met. Misha, Vova, Volodya, Vladik, and Zhenya will all have to spend the spring here in any case. And Dunya says she wants to accompany us, at least for a little ways. She wants to see more of the South, she says.”

  “Will we be ready?” asked Slava. “Will Lesnograd be ready for you to go?”

  “Staying won’t do us any good,” said Olga. “Lesnograd is better off without me.”

  Slava tried to come up with a response that would soothe Olga’s wounded feelings but also encourage her to leave soon, but just then she was distracted by a vision of what she could say to her sister on her return to Krasnograd, and before she could find the necessary words to comfort her, Olga went on, “I’m not suited for rule, it’s painfully clear. I’ve never been able to stand Lesnograd and I still can’t. And I’m afraid I’m going to jump up and strangle both my husband and my sister if I have to spend one more day in their company. The only thing I’m good for is journeying, so let’s set off on a journey. Maybe it will be more successful than our last one. I can at least get you and Vladislava to Krasnograd safely, I hope, although frankly, this expedition has been such a disaster from start to finish that I’m beginning to doubt I could make it across the street without stumbling.”

  “Our journey hasn’t been a disaster,” said Slava. “Far from it.”

  “We accomplished nothing,” said Olga firmly.

  “That’s not true,” said Slava. “We accomplished many things.”

  “Yes, we got lost lots of times,” said Olga. “We were very successful at not finding our way or doing what we had set out to do.”

  “But we did lots of other things,” Slava pointed out to her.

  “My head for beheading, you’re sorry now you agreed to come with us, aren’t you?” said Olga. “Your time would have been much better spent back in Krasnograd.”

  “Quite the contrary,” said Slava. “Thus far, this journey has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I think my life will be forever better because of it.”

  Olga gave Slava a doubtful look, but instead of questioning her further, only said that she had already ordered the maids serving her to pack up everything she would need for the return to Krasnograd, and to be ready to set out directly after breakfast the next morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  Somehow it seemed odd, and much too easy, when they went out onto the square the next morning and found sleighs waiting for them, already loaded with provisions. Vasilisa Vasilisovna, who looked to have been up the entire night, packing and worrying, followed them out to the square and took a very dramatic and tearful farewell of Vladislava, much to the latter’s discomfort and annoyance. She stood and watched them, her hands clenched under her chin, until they were out of sight.

  “How long until we’re in Krasnograd?” Vladislava demanded, as soon as they had turned the corner and the kremlin was no longer in view.

  “Two weeks, maybe more,” Olga told her. “It depends on the roads. Spring will be here soon, and if it starts to rain, we’ll get caught in the slush and won’t make much progress. And we’re tied to these sleighs, I’m afraid. Well, tied to them as long as we have to haul all the clothing your mother packed for you.”

  “Oh, we can just leave all that behind, if we need to,” said Vladislava carelessly. “Will we be staying at waystations?”

  “Most of the way,” Olga told her. She, like her sister, looked as if she had not slept much the night before, and was sitting slumped in her seat in a way that was most unlike her. Slava knew that she had gone to say farewell to her mother before breakfast, and that, despite their lifelong antipathy for each other, the fact that this farewell was most likely forever seemed to be weighing down on her spirits very heavily.

  “I’m so looking forward to it!” cried Vladislava, who had also said farewell to her grandmother but did not appear to be particularly oppressed by it. “I’ve never gotten to stay at a waystation before! Will we change horses often?”

  “Probably,” Olga told her. “If the waystations have fresh horses for us to change.”

  “But what will happen to our horses, then?” asked Vladislava, this problem suddenly dawning on her. “I’d hate to lose them. Vorobey’s my favorite, and all the grooms say they can’t imagine the stable without Lastochka.”

  “They will be returned to Lesnograd by the next travelers heading that way,” Olga assured her.

  This satisfied Vladislava’s curiosity on that score, and, having forgotten about the horses entirely, she spoke with great excitement about a number of things for several hours. It seemed as if with every verst that separated her from Lesnograd, she became more and more like the child she was, as if Lesnograd had been making her old before her time and now, in the woods and under Slava’s care, she was able for the first time in her life to be a little girl, and she intended to capitalize on every moment of it. Slava was gladdened by it, but by midday she was already finding it difficult to summon the necessary attention and enthusiasm to respond to Vladislava’s words and the tumultuous flow of her thoughts. But since Vladislava was owed a whole childhood of the loving attention she had never received, Slava stifled her fatigue and spoke with her as warmly as possible about leshiye, the lives of animals and stars, the building of roads, the construction of sleighs, the geography of the Known World, the possibility that other countries lay beyond the Known World, the possibility of pl
aces that were other worlds entirely, and many other things.

  Sometime in the afternoon Olga pointed out to Vladislava that they had now passed beyond the farthest extent of her previous travels, which provoked loud squeals of joy. Slava suddenly realized that one day her daughter would also go on her first real journey, and perhaps she, too, would squeal with joy in just the same way, and for a moment she felt so happy she thought tears might come to her eyes. She caught Olga staring at her in a puzzled fashion, and quickly composed her face into the appropriate expression of seriousness, because, she could tell, Olga was still in much too low a mood to tolerate very much of other people’s happiness.

  They arrived at the waystation just after sunset. Vladislava, who had already begun to find sleigh-riding rather tedious, leapt out from her seat as soon as they came to a halt, and ran up the steps onto the inn porch before the rest of them could even set foot upon the snowy ground. A surprised-looking serving girl came out to greet them.

  “Such a large party!” she called from the porch.

  “Do you have room for us?” Olga called back.

  “I hope so, noblewoman,” said the girl, not very encouragingly.

  “Find room,” Olga ordered her.

  “I don’t know, noblewoman…” said the girl. “I’ll ask my mother…Who’s here?”

  “Olga Vasilisovna and her retinue,” said Olga. She must have still been in a foul mood, for it was the first time Slava had seen her make use of her title outside of Lesnograd, but it had a marvelous effect. The girl bowed several times, and then stumbled over herself rushing back inside to find room for them.

  The waystation mistress, accompanied by all her children and servants, came out and said, with many bows and apologies, that it would take a little time for them to shift people out of their rooms in order to make way for Olga and her party, but in the meanwhile they could be so kind as to deign to take some refreshment, for which no payment, of course, would be required. Somewhat to Slava’s astonishment, Olga accepted with a curt nod of her head.