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

by E. P. Clark

  “Tell me of Krasnograd, Tsarinovna, for I know little of it,” said Dunya, also smiling harder.

  And so Slava spoke to her at length of the wonders of Krasnograd, the Beautiful City, the city of forty forties of towers, and they both pretended to be interested in Slava’s words and to be glad to be approaching the city that they both feared. Although this did not actually make them feel any better about Krasnograd, it did occupy them until they reached a spot in the road that was so icy and muddy that they all had to get out of the sleighs and walk for close to a verst before the road became safe to drive on again. That made them so cold and wet that they had no more energy to spare for dreading Krasnograd, a welcome development.

  They stopped that night at a waystation that was full up with travelers desperate to reach their destination before the roads disintegrated entirely into a muddy morass. Olga suggested, although not very seriously, that Slava announce herself and demand that the station be cleared for her, but Slava refused even to consider it, and so Olga, Slava, Dunya, and Vladislava were squeezed together in a bed meant for two people, while the men were told they could sleep in the stable. Suddenly Krasnograd didn’t seem very bad at all.

  The next morning the roads were solid ice. The waystation mistress, after taking one look out the front porch, announced that none of her horses would be leaving the stable until the footing softened into something less treacherous. This provoked a general wail from all the breakfasting travelers.

  “Travelers come and go, but my horses are my livelihood,” said the waystation mistress in response to their pleas and lamentations. “Break your own heads if you like, but may the Black God take me if I let you bow a tendon on one of my own horses.”

  Olga at first wanted to wait at the waystation until its mistress would permit her horses to be used, but when she asked the waystation mistress how long that would be, she was told that they would be last in line for horses when they were finally released, which would mean they would probably end up waiting at least until the next day in any case. Slava could see that she was opening her mouth to claim priority due to rank, and hastily forestalled her by saying, “What if we used our old horses?”

  “They’re pretty tired,” said Olga, obviously irked by the station mistress’s refusal. “I doubt we’ll get far with them.”

  “But farther than we will without any horses at all?” Slava asked.

  “Well…When you put it like that…” Olga suddenly grinned. “We won’t be able to go above a walk today in any case, no doubt, so I suppose we might as well plod along with the old nags we’ve already got.”

  After further consultation with Dunya, Grisha, and Dima, and several forays out onto the main road to test its condition, it was decided that their party would set out directly, but that they would walk beside the sleighs until the road softened up enough to be safe.

  “You must be in a powerful hurry to get to Krasnograd,” observed one of the other travelers as they prepared to set off.

  “We’ve been on the road a long time, and we have precious cargo,” said Olga.

  “Apparently not that precious, if you’re willing to risk it on these roads,” said the other traveler. “But youth is impetuous, and nobility is arrogant.”

  “Who said I was noble!” cried Olga indignantly, much to Slava’s amusement.

  “Anyone can see you’re used to getting your own way, noblewoman,” said the other traveler, shaking her head and preparing to return to the breakfast room. Judging by her looks, she had long left the folly of youth behind her, preferring ample breakfasts instead. “Well, life will teach you different, I have no doubt. You’ll slow down one day.”

  “But not today, thank the gods!” said Olga. “Grisha! Where are those horses!”

  Just then Grisha and Sasha brought the horses round, and they set off, with Olga hotly denying her impetuosity until she caught sight of the others’ faces, and then admitted, grinning, that maybe she could sometimes be a tiny, tiny bit impetuous.

  “Perhaps, but just a tiny bit, and only sometimes,” said Dima, grinning at her in a way he didn’t normally in front of the others. Olga only laughed, though.

  Her high spirits were needed that day, for yesterday’s slushy roads had frozen into treacherous ruts, which made the sleighs slide wildly in all directions, so that they all had to assist the tired horses in keeping the sleighs moving in a direction that was more or less forward. Once the roads had softened back into slush, they were able to get back into the sleighs, but the horses could do nothing more than plod along at a walk.

  Their exertions meant that the morning flew by for Slava, even though they covered very little ground, and then in the afternoon Vladislava wanted to hear more about the princesses she would meet in Krasnograd, and so before Slava knew it, the day was over and they were stopping for the night in a small village.

  “We didn’t make much progress today, but if we can get some fresh horses here, we’ll still make it to Krasnograd in two days,” said Olga over supper.

  “Are we likely to get fresh horses here?” asked Slava, looking around at the cottage where they were spending the night. It was sort of clean, which was the best thing that could be said about it, other than it was probably the best cottage in the village, seeing as it belonged to the village headwoman. “Are they likely to have the kind of horses we need—or any spare horses at all?”

  “Oh, they’ll have horses,” said Olga confidently. “This time of year, before the plowing starts, they’ll have lots of horses just standing around eating their heads off. I’m sure they’ll be glad to loan us some of them for the right price.”

  Slava started to make more arguments against the likelihood of their being able to procure horses, but stopped herself when she realized she was just trying to provide reasons to herself for delaying their return to Krasnograd. She told herself not to be ridiculous, but when Olga asked their hostess if there were any available horses to take them the rest of the way to Krasnograd, and the headwoman said yes, the village had more than enough horses, Slava had to admit to herself that her heart sank at the removal of this obstacle. Despite—no, because of—all the happy daydreams of the previous week about her return to Krasnograd, now that it was actually facing her, her happiness was turning into dread, and, what was even more annoying, quite against her will. She would have liked to be overjoyed at being so close to home, and she provided herself with many reasons why she should be overjoyed, but she wasn’t. She would also have liked to think that the reason she feared their arrival in Krasnograd was because of the curse, but she knew it was nothing so sensible as that—she just feared Krasnograd, and for no good reason other than it made her unhappy, which made her even more unhappy and afraid. Which, she supposed, was curse enough. If curses grew out of a person’s own unhappiness, then she must have enough to curse the Krasnograd kremlin and everyone in it thrice over. Truly, she had no need of Princess Severnolesnaya and her sorceresses to cast any curses, she told herself, as she had done a perfectly respectable job all on her own. The question of whether Princess Severnolesnaya’s curse had taken effect or not was probably a moot point, as Slava’s own self-engendered curse was undoubtedly working away with unstoppable fervor and had no need of help from any Northern princesses to cause harm to Slava and everyone around her.

  This fruitless and inescapable train of thought made her so irritated with herself that between that and the dread—which only grew, the more she tried to make it go away—she slept very poorly that night, which made her even more unhappy the next morning, when her arrival in Krasnograd was even nearer and she had to suffer the effects of a sleepless night to boot.

  She spent most of the morning in a sulk, which she tried to hide from the others, which only made her even sulkier…

  “Will you be going out to the Stepnoye territory this summer?” Olga suddenly asked her, breaking her sullen and self-condemnatory reverie.

  “What?” asked Slava, startled.

  “Since
it might be yours soon. Will you be going out there this summer? Who knows,” Olga raised her eyebrows, “you could even have a husband waiting out there for you.”

  This, while not a welcome thought in and of itself, did make Slava realize that if she didn’t like Krasnograd, she could just go elsewhere! If not the Stepnoye territory, then there were many other places where she would be welcome…Krasnograd was simply where her sister happened to live, not a prison in which Slava was condemned to live out the rest of her days…

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Or perhaps I might go to the South—I fear you may have infected me with your love for traveling.”

  “You should travel this summer then, if you feel well enough,” said Olga. “You won’t get many chances for a year or two after that.”

  “Why not?” demanded Vladislava.

  “Oh…” said Olga, “She’ll have too many responsibilities, that’s why.”

  “You’re hiding something from me!” Vladislava said indignantly.

  “How would a princess say that?” put in Slava, before Olga could deny that she was hiding anything and thereby make Vladislava even more suspicious.

  “I don’t know,” said Vladislava, who seemed to have forgotten her earlier good behavior in her annoyance over having something concealed from her. “She’d probably come up with some lie.”

  “Not some lie,” said Slava, although, truth be told, princesses did spend a good deal of their time engaged in something that did have a strong resemblance to lying. Even Slava was currently engaged in something that was a lot like lying, she had to admit to herself. But she plunged on regardless: “She’d tell the truth, but in a way that didn’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”

  “And helped her find out what she wanted to know!” cried Vladislava triumphantly, Slava’s lessons on princessly behavior all flooding back to her, now that she was distracted from her annoyance.

  “Princesses have to be very clever,” Slava told her. “They have to train with their words just like a singer must train with her songs, or a warrior with his sword.”

  “That makes sense,” said Vladislava thoughtfully. “So…Why won’t you be able to travel after this summer? Why can you leave this summer, but only if you feel well enough, but then not in the winter or next year?”

  “I may have many things I have to do in Krasnograd this winter,” said Slava. “New responsibilities, as Olga said.”

  “Like the Stepnoye territory?”

  “Yes, like the Stepnoye territory,” agreed Slava.

  “But shouldn’t you go out there, if you end up ruling it?”

  “Perhaps I will do more good ruling it from Krasnograd,” said Slava, embarrassed by the feebleness of her answer but unable to think of a way to distract Vladislava and escape from the conversation. “There I will have the constant attention of the Empress, after all.”

  “I suppose…” said Vladislava, looking unconvinced. “But why might you not feel well enough to go out there this summer? Do you think you’ll be ill?”

  “It has been a hard journey,” said Slava. “I might need to rest.”

  “But you’ve been doing nothing but rest in these sleighs for weeks!” pointed out Vladislava. “We’ve gotten far too much rest, I think.”

  “Riding in sleighs is more restful for some than it is for others,” said Slava. “And it was a long hard journey before we arrived in Lesnograd.”

  Vladislava still looked unconvinced, but Slava was finally able to distract her with more tales of Krasnograd, and the matter was dropped. It did make Slava wonder how Vladislava would react when she finally discovered Slava’s news—if, Slava added hastily in order to ward off any malevolent attention of the gods, she in fact had news to tell. Vladislava certainly looked upon Slava as her own personal property, and Slava feared she might not be willing to share Slava with a sister. In her dream, Slava reminded herself, Vladislava had quickly become reconciled to the news. Everything else in the dream had come true, so perhaps that would too.

  It was cloudy all day that day, with a warm wind from the South, which made Grisha sniff and say that true spring was only a few days away.

  “We’re riding right into it, too,” he said. “We may meet it in Krasnogorod.”

  “Will we reach Krasnograd tomorrow?” asked Vladislava, bouncing in her seat with excitement.

  “The next morning, most likely,” said Olga.

  Slava’s stomach twisted again at that news. She could already see Krasnograd’s towers rising up before her, and hear her sister’s imperious voice, demanding to know what they had accomplished and looking disappointed when she discovered how little they had learned. Slava thought of the curse, and didn’t know what she would say about it. Keep it a secret? Tell her sister? Look for signs to see if it was already working? Would it even matter what she did? Princess Severnolesnaya had made it sound as if it wouldn’t. Slava had been trying hard not to think about it their whole way South, but now she was about to be forced to face it. Her return to Krasnograd, and the presence of the curse—whether the one cast by Princess Severnolesnaya’s sorceresses, or the one Slava had engendered herself and now carried around inside her with no help from any outside forces—loomed before her like some dark and mysterious barrier, which she not only had no idea how to overcome, but had no desire to overcome in the first place. She would much rather run away, just as she had when she had set out on this journey. And it had worked for a while, but now she had only created more problems for herself on her return. All the strength and courage she thought she had gained seemed to be trickling out of her with every verst she drew closer to home, until now fear was gripping her so firmly that her lungs would no longer expand properly.

  I am being reborn, she told herself. I died, and now I am being reborn. No doubt everyone chokes as they pass through the birth canal, and screams in terror when they first see the light of day. Birth must be even more terrifying than death, and it is the gods’ greatest mercy that we do not remember. I am being reborn, and soon this will all be over and everything will be well with me. I am only being reborn. Thousands of people are born every year.

  And many of them die, and take their mothers with them, said another, much less comforting voice in her head.

  Many survive, she argued.

  Yes, but not all, said the second voice. And there is no way to know beforehand whether you will be among their number.

  Then I must have courage, Slava said to herself. My only way forward now is courage. It was easy to say, and was also true, but that helped very little, and Slava spent the rest of the day in the claws of such dread that even she, who had sampled dread in abundance, had hitherto never suspected of existing. Every now and then she would wonder if her sufferings were leaving marks on her face and body for all to see, but no one seemed to notice any difference.

  ***

  They stopped that night at another overcrowded waystation only a few versts out from Krasnograd. Slava, to her shame, could scarcely force herself to swallow her supper. Olga, thinking that her queasiness was from another source, gave her a sympathetic look and said loudly, “Saving your appetite for the kremlin table?”

  “Yes,” said Slava, doing her best to smile gratefully at Olga and cheerfully at the others. “My stomach seems to have become refined and picky again, this close to home.”

  This led to a lengthy and lively discussion on the part of the men about what kind of food they could expect to eat in Krasnograd, with many lavish descriptions of past and future feasts. After supper none of the others wanted to retire to their beds for a long time, preferring to sit in the main room and listen to the news from Krasnograd. Slava listened with half an ear for a while, but when she decided there was nothing of importance for her to hear, she was the first to leave for bed.

  She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep again that night, but a dark and dreamless sleep descended upon her almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She
was extremely surprised to surface from the darkness and discover that it was already the next morning, and it was time to rise and prepare for the final few versts of their journey.

  “It’s raining!” Olga told her. “Raining hard! A spring rain! A real spring rain—warm like a spring rain should be!” She was trying to look disgusted at this news, which meant those final few versts would be traveled in truly disgusting conditions, but the arrival of spring was too joyous an occasion to be sad about, even if it was accompanied by unpleasant inconveniences.

  “It is?” said Slava, and looked out the window. Even through the thick wavy glass she could not only see but feel and smell the warm spring rain.

  “How do you feel?” asked Olga. “You didn’t seem very well last night.”

  “Much better,” said Slava, rising from the bed. “Extremely well, in fact.” And it was true. The dark, dreamless sleep had somehow washed away the fear, or at least—as soon as she had that thought, Slava knew that the fear was not gone, not truly—it had risen up around it and submerged it, so that she could sail safely over it. It was strange, she thought to herself, how quickly and unexpectedly her mind could change itself. She was not only not dreading her arrival in Krasnograd, she was impatient for it to happen. Someday, she thought, she would probably laugh at herself about this. She was even eager to run out into the spring rain, although no doubt she would grow sick of it soon enough—such as within half a verst of being out in it.

  They breakfasted quickly and headed out into the gray morning light. The warm spring rain was even more disgusting than Slava had imagined it would be, but no one minded. When it lashed in their faces from an extra-strong gust of wind from the South, everyone laughed and talked about the hot meals ahead of them, and when they had to get out of the sleighs and help guide them through the slushy pools on top of the icy road surface, they reminded each other, still laughing, of the warm bathhouse awaiting them when they got to Krasnograd. Once they were able to get back in the sleighs, the men broke out into a song about the rain, and sang all the way until the city towers rose up before them.