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

by E. P. Clark

  “I’m sure my sister is awaiting your reply, Anna Avdotyevna,” she said. “Tell her I will be with her momentarily.”

  Anna Avdotyevna raised her eyebrows in something that was almost like a smile.

  “I’ll tell her, Tsarinovna,” she said. “It is good to have you back. I can see your journey did you good. The kremlin will have need of you, I’m sure.” She bowed and left, leaving the rest of the room in deep shock.

  “You…you…you…” said Masha and Manya, staring at Slava in astonishment.

  “You are my servants,” said Slava, “and no one else has the right to command you, do you understand? If she should order you to do something, inform her that you are to attend me constantly, and have no leisure for running the errands of others, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Tsarinovna, yes, yes, we understand, yes,” said Masha and Manya in chorus, bobbing up and down in fervent bows. Slava wondered what they were actually thinking. They seemed perfectly sincere and she was certain that they were genuinely grateful for what she had done for them. But what else were they thinking? What was it like to be Masha or Manya? What was it like to be someone whose purpose in life was to spend her days sewing unneeded, unwanted fripperies and then putting them on and taking them off some lonely, unnecessary person you didn’t understand and could never come to know? She became aware that they had stopped bowing and were staring at her in rapidly growing apprehension, requiring some kind of order from her to restore their view of how things were supposed to be.

  “And now finish my hair, so that I may go see what my sister wants,” Slava told them, returning to her comfortable chair. Masha and Manya, gazing at her adoringly, rushed to finish putting up her hair.

  “We’re done now, Tsarinovna—will you deign to look at yourself in the mirror?” asked Manya, as she always did when they had finished with her. She held up a small hand mirror to so that Slava could see herself from all angles in the larger mirror on the wall in front of her. Normally Slava gave herself only the most cursory glance, to make absolutely sure before heading off to the Hall of Council that she was, in fact, wearing clothes (as a small girl Slava had been rather inattentive to such minor details, and had learned in her adulthood to be extremely vigilant about that kind of thing). Looking in the mirror gave her little pleasure, and often made her feel squeamish and uncomfortable, as if the Slava-in-the-mirror could reveal to her all kinds of things she didn’t want to know about herself. Even she, she now realized, had shrunk away from her own clear gaze, not wanting to expose her own heart any more than anyone else did. But now, after being away for so long, she was curious to see herself in the Tsarinovna’s mirror, wearing the Tsarinovna’s clothes.

  She had expected to find herself very thin, but in fact, even though her gown hung on her in a way it had not before her journey, she seemed to fill it out more, as if she had grown. Everything about her seemed firmer, more defined. Her face, instead of looking worn and tired as she had expected, looked strong and sharp, like the face of someone in whose veins flowed the blood of Miroslava Praskovyevna and many generations of empresses after her. Her eyes, which seemed even larger and grayer than they had before her journey, stared back at her unflinchingly, and told her that she must have no fear, because she could neither run nor hide from whatever it was she must face, which was above all her own soul.

  “You look…” said Manya. Slava waited with interest to hear what she had to say. No one, not even her maids, normally had the mendacity to call her beautiful, and to say that she looked “very fine” seemed too insignificant for the occasion.

  “Like a Tsarina, Tsarinovna,” said Masha. “Like you should be the Tsarina.”

  “Perhaps the gods have other plans for me,” said Slava.

  “You’re not going away again, are you, Tsarinovna!” cried Manya, sounding bitterly disappointed. “I’m sorry, Tsarinovna,” she added quickly. “If you deign to please yourself by traveling, then that must be best.”

  “We shall see,” said Slava. “But meanwhile I have taken on other duties. Is my ward, Vladislava Vasilisovna, being well cared for?”

  “Oh yes, Tsarinovna, Lyudmila Vlastomilovna has been assigned to dress her, and little Yanochka is to wait upon her during the day and be her companion—they thought it would be jolly for her to have a little friend her own age—is that acceptable, Tsarinovna?”

  “Perfectly acceptable,” Slava assured them. “Run and tell Lyudmila Vlastomilovna that I will come and escort Vladislava Vasilisovna to the feast as soon as I have spoken with my sister. And now I suppose I should speak with her.”

  “An escort is waiting in the corridor for you, Tsarinovna,” Masha told her.

  “Then tell them I will be with them directly,” said Slava. And, waiting just long enough for Masha to warn the guards and allow them to organize themselves into a formal escort, Slava set off to speak with her sister. She could feel her own eyes watching her steadily all the way out the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Slava was struck on entering her sister’s chambers, just as she was every time, at how fine and grand they were compared with her own. Not that she envied her sister: quite the contrary. She couldn’t help but wonder whether her sister didn’t feel a little bit lost and awkward in such large, sumptuous rooms, which seemed designed to make their inhabitants painfully aware of their own tiny insignificance. As far as Slava knew, her sister had no little place to call her own, some place where she could stop being the Tsarina and just be Vladya. If that were true, Slava couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, and if her sister did in fact have some secret place, then Slava still couldn’t help but feel sorry for her and the fact that she felt the need to hide such a thing from her only sister. Slava had often felt sorry for her sister and her faults, but this was the first time that her pity was untinged by any sense of angry resentment. Always before, whenever she felt sorry for her, that feeling had been immediately followed by a helpless wish to change her sister’s behavior, but now Slava could say to herself that if her sister wanted to improve her lot, she, Slava, would help, but if she didn’t want to—and how many people couldn’t or wouldn’t improve their lot, even when it would require only the smallest of efforts!—then she, Slava, wouldn’t worry about it any more. Her sister’s foolish unhappiness was out of her power to correct, and the only person Slava was affecting by fretting over it was herself. Now, Slava told herself, the trick would be to remember all of that when actually in her sister’s presence.

  “Dearest Slava!” cried her sister, sweeping into the room. “I hope you are refreshed?”

  “As refreshed as I can be, after only a few hours off the road,” said Slava.

  “And…But I won’t ask you if you had a pleasant journey, it was so long and arduous, and you already sketched so admirably for us the difficulties and dangers you faced, but I trust you will soon recover…Now, about those dangers and difficulties—but wait, first, I think, we must discuss your ward, what is her name? Vladislava Vasilisovna? She is the daughter of Princess Severnolesnaya’s heir, is she not? The eventual heir of all of Severnolesnoye, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” said Slava.

  “And what possessed you…But I’m sure you had your reasons, and they seemed good to you at the time…The Severnolesniye, though…And the old princess is ill, is she not?...It seems not the most fortuitous time…” Slava’s sister left her sentence hanging, and looked at Slava expectantly. Slava realized, with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, that once again her sister thought she (Slava, that is) had done a foolish thing, and was convinced that she (Vladya, that is) was much cleverer than Slava and that Slava had therefore made a mistake, and that she was trying to convince Slava of the same thing, and that all these notions were so firmly fixed in her sister’s mind that she was not even aware of what she was doing.

  “The old princess is ill, yes,” said Slava. “In fact, I would not be surprised to receive word of her passing very shortly. And Lesnograd has been thr
own into some disorder by all this, but that seemed all the more reason to bring Vladislava to Krasnograd. Whatever happens, Lesnograd will not pass directly into the hands of a child of ten. Vladislava Vasilisovna is a girl of high rank and, as best I can tell, even higher abilities, and I judged it best give her all the advantages Krasnograd has to offer a young princess, instead of leaving her to be raised in ignorance and neglect in a barbaric backwater province. Her grandmother no doubt meant to raise her to rule, but that is no longer in her power, and she is also no friend to our family. Her mother, the old princess’s heir, seems to bear Krasnograd no ill will, but she is a foolish and ineffectual woman, incapable of raising a child, let alone ruling a province. When Lesnograd passes to her hands she will do nothing but wring them and dither, I am sure of it, and it will do Vladislava no good to see that. Krasnograd has need of strong and loyal princesses. Vladislava Vasilisovna may one day be such a princess, but not if she is left in Lesnograd. Let her spend a few years improving her mind and learning to love Krasnograd, and when she returns to her homeland, she will be a valuable ally.”

  “That is assuming that she does learn to love Krasnograd,” said Slava’s sister with a condescending little laugh. “Many a ward has learned exactly the opposite lesson from the one intended.” She made a little face designed to show that she had just said a very wise thing.

  “Then we must make her learn to love Krasnograd,” said Slava.

  “I fear that is not in our power,” said Slava’s sister, with another condescending little laugh.

  “I fear we must make ourselves lovable,” said Slava, looking at her sister directly in the face. Her sister squirmed slightly under her gaze. “We must gain her love by being lovable, her trust by being trustworthy, and her admiration by being admirable. In other words, we must gain good allies by being good rulers.”

  “I fear that only works with the few,” said Slava’s sister, with another little laugh that was supposed to be condescending but came out as nervous instead. “Many do not love lovability, trust trustworthiness, or admire admirability.”

  “Vladislava will,” said Slava. “And so will many others, if those virtues arise from true strength of purpose and character.”

  “Why, you seem quite in love with this girl, little sister,” said Slava’s sister, squirming even more and trying to regain the upper hand in a conversation that was making her unexpectedly uncomfortable. “Is she such a sweet little thing, then? Is she lovable, trustworthy, and admirable?”

  “No,” said Slava with a smile. “Not as yet. At the moment she is more an unharnessed force than anything else, a danger to herself and all around her.”

  “That doesn’t seem like the kind of girl we want around Krasnograd,” said Slava’s sister, cheering up at what seemed like the perfect opportunity to put Slava down. “She sounds more like someone we want far away from Krasnograd.”

  “It is the strongest currents that turn the largest mills,” said Slava. “The wildest horses that win the greatest races. The boldest men who make the best warriors. One simply has to have the courage to tame them, without causing them to lose their strength and swiftness. It is the same with Vladislava.”

  “As long as we don’t get carried off in the flood,” said Slava’s sister, still smiling condescendingly.

  “We are Krasnograd,” Slava told her. “We are the Zerkalitsy. We must trust in our own strength, if we trust in nothing else.”

  “Well…” Slava’s sister laughed with a painful awkwardness that she was unable to conceal. “Yes…I am eager to meet this girl, since it seems she will be my guest for some time…And as for the other business…I mean the ‘gifts’ you claim to have manifested on your journey…Describe them. I mean, what makes you believe them to be gifts? And what made you think to go to Lesnograd to discover more about them. Surely Krasnograd would have been the better choice.”

  “Once we entered the forest, I began to have dreams,” Slava began.

  “Everybody has dreams,” her sister observed, with a complacent smile.

  “Yes, and so do I,” said Slava. “Often. But once we entered the forest, I began to have dreams about the forest. That it was speaking to me.”

  “We often have dreams about the places we inhabit,” said her sister. She was still smiling complacently, but there was something fixed about that smile now, as if it cost her effort to maintain it.

  “Yes,” said Slava. “But then one day we got lost when we shouldn’t have. When we tried to retrace our steps, we ended up not where we had started. And then I saw an elk, and it seemed to speak to me, and I followed it, and it led us back to the trail.”

  “Many people get lost in the forest,” said Slava’s sister, looking relieved. “There’s nothing unusual about that. And it’s easy enough to think you’re retracing your steps when you’re really going farther astray. And if you’re lucky enough to make it back to the path, it’s easy enough to ascribe your luck to other forces. The elk was just luck, you know.”

  “And then I collapsed and had a great vision, that I had become the forest,” Slava continued.

  “You collapsed!” For a moment Slava’s sister looked alarmed, but then she realized what an excellent opportunity this was to assert her own superiority, and said, “Well, that explains it all, then. You were no doubt tired and hungry. Our senses can play all kinds of tricks on us when we’re tired and hungry.”

  “Yes,” said Slava. “And then, after many days of travel, we reached the Midnight Land. There I had more visions. I dreamed that the others were running towards danger, and I begged a snow fox who was with me to turn them aside, and she did, and when they returned, they told the story of their adventures, and it was exactly as I had dreamed it, including the snow fox. And then I had a dream that the leshiye had come for me, and wanted to offer me more gifts. They wanted to seal their offering with the sacrifice of a snow hare, but I refused, and they attacked me and tore my arm, and when I awoke, there were scars—here, look.” Slava unlaced her gown at the throat and pulled it open enough to show her sister her scarred shoulder. Her sister flinched and looked away, but no belief rose in her eyes.

  “And so then we left the Midnight Land, and decided to proceed to Lesnograd, only we got lost again when our compass would no longer show North. But then a snow hare, brother to the one I saw in my dream, came to me and led us to the road.”

  Slava’s sister’s face was shutting up tighter and tighter at the recounting of these strange doings, but Slava carried on regardless.

  “The leshiye came to us when we were on the road, and tried to take me. The others attempted to defend me, but they were unable to stand against the leshiye, and so I went to them, I gave myself to the leshiye, but they could not make use of my gift, and they let us go, but we lost our provisions and some of us were wounded.”

  Slava’s sister shook her head disbelievingly, but said nothing.

  “And then we were captured by bandits and taken to their hiding-place, and they tried to attack us and kill us, but I…I turned my gift on them somehow, I repelled them, and we escaped.”

  “Bandits!” Slava’s sister cried. “And this was on the great road?”

  “The Severnovostochnaya road,” Slava confirmed.

  “Bandits on the Severnovostochnaya! Attacking large parties! What has Princess Severnolesnaya been doing! Sitting with her arms folded and taking young lovers? Bandits!” Slava’s sister jumped on this opportunity to express her indignation over something, and went on and on about the disgrace of bandits on one of the great roads of Zem’, finally concluding, “But it was lucky you had such a large party to protect you, dear sister. Olga Vasilisovna and her men never struck me as good for much of anything, but if they were able to drive off a party of bandits, at least they served some purpose.”

  Slava didn’t know what part of that sentence annoyed her more: the fact that her sister had apparently been willing to let her go off on a long journey with people who had never struck her as good f
or much of anything (although it was quite possible that she was saying that now just to say it), or the fact that she had apparently ignored everything Slava had said about what had happened with the bandits, and reconstructed the tale to suit her own fancy. After a brief pause, in which she struggled with how to frame the next part of her story, Slava continued:

  “My gift for once was turned outwards, rather than inwards, and I was able to repel them long enough for us to make our escape, but only at great cost to myself and to others. Indeed, I caused almost as must harm to my allies as to my enemies. But we escaped and made our way to a nearby village, which took us in and gave us food, shelter, and care for our wounded. We were forced to leave half our party behind, as they were unfit to continue. In fact, we even feared for the lives of some of them. And so I asked…there was an herbwoman there, who seemed…more than a simple herbwoman. And I asked her if she would save them, and she said I must…she took my hand and brought me before all the spirits of the forest, and asked if I were willing to give them what they needed in exchange for my friends’ lives, and so of course I agreed.”

  “Oh, of course,” said her sister. Her face was now so full of gloating condenscension that there was no room on it for anything else. Repressing a sigh, Slava plunged on.

  “After we left the village, we got lost again…”

  “Again!” her sister interrupted, smiling patronizingly. “I thought you had scouts and guides with you!”

  “Or rather, I got lost, I strayed from the path, and I encountered…I encountered creatures from the gods. Creatures and also a man. He showed me my way back to the road, and when we were united with the group, it turned out…it turned out that he was Olga’s father. Olga’s father who was thought to be dead these many years. But he had not been killed, he had been taken into the service of the gods. He decided to accompany us to Lesnograd. On our way to Lesnograd, we stopped at a waystation.”