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

by E. P. Clark

  The other princes, on catching her eye, all muttered their excuses and fled. Slava waited until they had cleared the room, and then went and stood over Valery Annovich, who was slumped on his bench in a posture of equal defiance and shame.

  “Welcome back to Krasnograd, Tsarinovna,” he said thickly. “May it bring you joy!” He looked down at the cup in his hand, saw that it still contained a considerable measure of vodka, and drank it down to the bottom in one swallow. “More than it has me,” he continued, even more thickly. “I suppose…Serafimiya has been filling your ears with talk, my head for beheading, complaining of me, I’m sure.” He tried to grin at her boldly, but it came out as the most awful twisted grimace of resentment and embarrassment. “Or has Princess Malokrasnova sent you to scold me for not treating her precious darling daughter kindly enough?”

  “Princess Malokrasnova would throw her daughter to the wolves at the first opportunity if she thought it might be of advantage to her, as you well know, Valery Annovich—and as your present ill-advised marriage so abundantly proves. No, I’m afraid you have nothing to fear on that score, much as I might like to be able to inform you of the opposite. It is the father’s duty to keep his new son in line—peasant fathers, you know, like to beat their new sons into submission as their welcome to the family—but Serafimiya, like so many of us, has no father. I have always abhorred that peasant practice, but now, looking at you, Valery Annovich, I begin to understand it. It seems that nothing short of cruelty will cure you.” Slava could feel a sweat of rage start to trickle down her back, and forced herself to stop before she began screaming at Valery Annovich, which would do no good at all.

  “Princess Malokrasnova’s darling daughter knew what she was getting into,” muttered Valery Annovich, looking down at his boots.

  “I highly doubt that,” said Slava.

  “Well, she was the one who insisted the match take place. She was the one who came after me, she was the one who begged our mothers for their consent, she was the one who dragged us both before the priestess and got us into this mess…” Valery Annovich broke off and stared miserably somewhere off beyond Slava’s left shoulder, apparently lost in melancholy, and, Slava suspected and sincerely hoped, self-critical reflections.

  “You do not seem happy, Valery Annovich,” said Slava, changing her tactics and sitting down beside him with a kind smile. Some part of her longed to reach out and slap his face, if not worse, but he really did look miserable, and chastising him further seemed unlikely to produce any beneficial effect, whereas sympathy was almost always a helpful jumping-off point, in Slava’s experience.

  “So you’ve come to commiserate, have you, Tsarinovna?” said Valery Annovich with a sneer. “Poor Valery Annovich! Half the women here despise me, and half pity me and are all too ready to offer me a bosom to cry on. Which half are you, Tsarinovna?”

  “Neither, I hope,” said Slava. “But you do seem very unhappy, Valery Annovich, and you know how unhappy that must make me.”

  “Why do you care, Tsarinovna?” he demanded sullenly. “I thought you were friends with Serafimiya—well, as much as either of you could ever be friends with anyone. I guess both of you like to share your sorrows, though. My head for beheading, you like nothing better than complaining to each other about your lovers.”

  Slava wondered how much of this he would remember tomorrow, and which would be the stronger upon remembering it: shame at having spoken so ungraciously of his wife, or horror at having spoken so insultingly to the Tsarinovna. She supposed that his feelings of both shame and fear were much blunter than her own, but she could see nonetheless that he did possess feelings of both shame and fear, as otherwise he would not have made himself so terribly unhappy as he had.

  “The pain of others causes me pain as well,” Slava told him. “And you do seem dreadfully unhappy, Valery Annovich. And needlessly so, if you’ll allow me to say so. Think of all the advantages you have! Youth, health, riches, and a wife who loves you. How many men can boast of such good fortune?”

  “Hah!” snorted Valery Annovich.

  “What more would you ask for?” Slava pressed on.

  “How about a wife who wasn’t a burden to me?” Valery said, straightening up and growing more animated. “A wife who wasn’t forced on me! A wife who wasn’t a constant thorn in my side, demanding my love, always reminding me what a disappointment I am, a wife who…” He put his face in his hands, in order, Slava suspected, to hide his tears.

  “Is there some other woman you prefer?” Slava asked gently.

  “Any woman!”

  “Her mother, perhaps?” Slava suggested with a smile. “After all, she set aside her husband years ago.”

  “What! Oh, that was a joke. You were joking at my unhappiness, Tsarinovna. Why do women like to laugh at men’s unhappiness?” he demanded plaintively.

  “Because so much of it is self-inflicted?” suggested Slava. “But think: would any other woman really be better than Serafimiya? Would you really be less unhappy with, for example, her mother?”

  “The gods forbid!” cried Valery Annovich, shuddering.

  “Or Princess Stepnaya, perhaps? Ailing as she is, she could use the help of a strong young man like you.”

  “Tfoo!” said Valery Annovich, spitting in disgust.

  “Or perhaps Aleksandra Anastasiyevna?” Aleksandra Anastiyevna was a minor noblewoman who had never married, preferring to take a succession of craftsmen and minor princes as her lovers, discarding each one as soon as she conceived a child or grew tired of him, whichever came first. How she managed to take so many lovers was a mystery to most around her, as she had a large, coarse figure (which had only grown coarser with each child), an unusually plain face, a querulous temper, and no land or riches to speak of. Slava had long since decided to put the whole thing to the unaccountability of men’s tastes, but it seemed that Valery shared her opinion of Aleksandra Anastasiyevna, for he was so horror-stricken at the thought that he could manage nothing more than a shiver of distaste at the mere mention of her name.

  “So you see,” said Slava with a kind smile, “things could be worse.”

  “Yes, but…” and just as Slava had expected, the whole wretched story of his own wretchedness and all the wretchedness he had caused other people came pouring drunkenly out. Not that there was anything new to hear: it was a story Slava had heard or seen enacted in front of her many times before. From Valery’s words, and from his painful silences and unhappy expressions, Slava gathered the following tale.

  As far as Valery was concerned, it had all been fun and games as long as his connection with Serafimiya had been a way of defying his mother (who had talked a lot about her wish to protect his virtue and her desire to make a good match for him, without actually doing anything to promote either of those aims—but it had certainly made him feel deliciously disobedient to engage in an illicit relationship behind his mother’s back) and deceiving his hated neighbor, Princess Malokrasnova. Serafimiya was very noble (and the daughter of his family’s worst enemy), very pretty, and very much in love with him, and the whole thing had stroked his vanity most pleasantly. But then, to his horror, the whole thing had gotten entirely out of hand and he had found himself a married man, with duties and responsibilities he had never been trained to assume. Still, he had allowed Serafimiya and his mother to force this upon him, because, after all, it was time to take up a man’s station, and he did secretly love Serafimiya, and he did want this happiness forced upon him against his will. Only, as was too often the case, the forcing ruined the happiness. Being made to do something he said he didn’t want to do was much less pleasant than he had thought it would be, and complaining about it eased his pain much less than he had expected.

  Not only that, but the happiness itself seemed to involve a lot more work than he had bargained for. As his mother’s cosseted youngest son, he was accustomed to everyone, most particularly the women of his family, catering to his every whim, and while Serafimiya was most certainly re
ady to do just that, she nonetheless seemed to expect some signs of affection and devotion on his side, or—even worse!—he secretly suspected that he owed her that, and that thought was more than he could bear. Gratitude for kindness and devotion! Why that would indicate that he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment just by breathing!

  Furthermore, he was dimly aware—no, he was acutely aware, it tortured him every hour of every day, even though he didn’t want to admit it, even to himself—that his behavior towards Serafimiya caused her pain, and not only that, she would sometimes reveal this to him, a most bewildering experience for Valery Annovich, who had always been told that his very existence was enough to brighten the spirits of any woman he met. To make matters worse, he was more and more harassed by the nagging suspicion that his own behavior was less than exemplary, a thought that had never crossed his mind before and from which he now recoiled in horror—only to have it pursue him even more aggressively. And then there was all the talk of children, the division of their estates, children (Slava had to bite her tongue to keep herself from pointing out that, as a man, Valery Annovich would be spared all the pain and sickness that would come with bearing his children, and as a nobleman, he would never have to lift a finger to care for them), the organization of their families to ensure the Yuzhnokrasnova family name did not disappear if Valery should prove to be its only heir, which seemed very likely, children, children, children…It must be dreadful, Slava supposed, to be so terribly selfish. To have one’s own self-satisfaction as one’s sole source of happiness! What a slender branch on which to rest such a large burden of hope and expectation! She looked at Valery’s wretchedly sullen face. It appeared his branch was long broken.

  “Just the other day Serafimiya was going on and on and on about what to name the first child, and asking my opinion on the subject, and plaguing me about it till I had to leave,” he related indignantly. “I went and hid out with a friend for two days, till I was sure she’d forgotten the matter—especially as I thought she wanted me to do something about it right then, about…producing a child, you know—but as soon as I returned, she was at it again, only first she cried because I’d left her for two days, and then she went right back to talking about children, until I…” Valery trailed off.

  “Put your hands around her neck and squeezed until she couldn’t speak?” Slava suggested.

  Valery stared at her with an expression of equal parts mortification, astonishment, and sullen self-justification.

  “I saw the marks this evening,” said Slava. “They are plainly visible under the collar of her gown whenever she bends down. For shame, Valery Annovich! What prince could live with himself, knowing that his wife attended the Empress’s feast and sat at the Empress’s table, all the while wearing the marks of his own cruel, violent hands on her tender neck? And this is to be the mother of your children? This is the woman to whom you gave yourself before the gods themselves? How could you stand to soil yourself so?” She stood back up. “I am very sorry for you and your unhappiness, and if there is anything I can do to alleviate it, you know you have only to ask and I will give it to you without hesitation, but if,” she leaned in close to him, “I ever hear—if the thought ever even crosses my mind—that you have offended Serafimiya Svetlanovna by so much as an unkind word, you have my assurances that you will find yourself in a mine before you even have time to look about you.”

  “They don’t send princes to the mines,” said Valery sullenly.

  “Oh, but they do, Valery Annovich, they do. For who do you think runs them? Someone of noble blood must oversee them, you know, and princesses have better things to do. The mines, like the battlefield, are a place for men to earn back all the food they eat from their mothers’ and wives’ tables. True, being the overseer of a mine is not so unpleasant as being a miner, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not so sweet either, and for a soft little boy like you, it would seem a very hard life indeed. They say the miners make their own lives worse than that of prisoners in the most terrible dungeon, and you would be drawn down into it, whether you wished it or no. I believe you would soon find that there are self-inflicted miseries much more terrible than the ones you have already suffered. I believe you would soon long to return to your wife and her demands that you take up a husband’s duties.”

  “I’m not a soft little boy!” cried Valery Annovich.

  “So prove it! Be a man! If you can, that is. And if you do not do so voluntarily by providing Serafimiya with the husband and father she deserves, then you may be sure I will force it upon you in some rather more painful manner. I will be watching you, Valery Annovich, every day that I am in Krasnograd I will be watching you, and so you had best watch your every step. Good night, Valery Annovich, and think on what I have said to you. Think hard.”

  With that, Slava left him, slumped on the bench in a misery too awful to contemplate. For the first time since she had known him, he looked something like a man. Slava thought she could even see some small sliver of soul, tormenting him there somewhere. She walked as quickly away as she could, in order to prevent herself from running back to comfort him. She rather doubted that her stern words would do him any good, but she was certain that her apologies and excuses would do him a great deal of harm.

  As she walked she reflected rather sadly that she seemed to have taken the place of Serafimiya’s father, and beaten Valery into submission so that he wouldn’t dare lift a finger against his bride, even if she had used her words, not her fists. Probably for Valery words were more frightening than fists anyway. She wondered how efficacious her verbal beating would prove to me. If it worked Serafimiya would be delivered of a terrible burden, but it was dreadful to think that Valery was incapable of learning from anything other than cruelty…And he was not the only one…Slava told herself she should stop dwelling on such miserable thoughts.

  She stepped back into the Hall of Celebration, but her sister was nowhere to be seen and the other guests were all dancing drunkenly. It was a shame, Slava thought, that they weren’t in a condition to do better justice to the excellent performance of the balalaika player and the singer, an extremely pretty girl with milky-white skin and a cloud of flaming hair…Slava did a double-take, and her heart jumped in her chest when she realized how much the girl resembled Oleg. For a moment all she could think of was how much she wished he were there. Once she had gotten over the surprise at her own strong desire, she inched over to where some serving girls were loading up trays of beer and vodka.

  “Has the singer been offered any refreshment?” Slava asked them.

  “Oh! Tsarinovna! We were just on our way!”

  “Allow me,” said Slava, taking a tray from the girl nearest her. “I believe…” Slava quickly changed her mind about how much she wanted to reveal, and said, “Her singing is very fine, is it not? I wish to invite her to sing for me again, a private audience.”

  “Oh, but Tsarinovna, let me deliver the message,” said the serving girl. “You’ll frighten her out of her singing if you suddenly show up beside her yourself.”

  Slava had to admit the justice of that remark, and so, returning the tray and telling the girl to tell the singer that the Tsarinovna wished to see her the next day, retired from the Hall of Celebration and went to bed.

  ***

  The next morning she received a message as soon as she awoke that Serafimiya Svetlanovna requested the honor to wait upon her at her earliest convenience.

  “Send her in with the breakfast,” Slava ordered, privately thinking to herself that this would be a good chance to force some much-needed food down Serafimiya’s throat.

  Accordingly, both Serafimiya and the food were shortly brought into Slava’s sitting room. Serafimiya appeared surprised at being granted access to Slava while she was still in her dressing gown, but she was too consumed with her own troubles to be surprised for long, and after muttering the briefest of pleasantries and excuses, she thrust a note into Slava’s hand.

  “What does this mean?!”
she demanded tearfully.

  The note was a scrap of paper, on which was written Gone to sanctuary, and nothing more.

  “Is this from Valery Annovich?” Slava asked.

  “Yes! He never came home last night—well, not while I was awake, but I fell asleep, and he must have snuck in during the night, and I discovered this by my bedside this morning!”

  “It appears he has gone to a sanctuary,” said Slava. If it were true, she heartily rejoiced in his decision, although she had her doubts about the efficacy of a few days’ prayer for someone such as Valery Annovich, if he even had, in fact, gone to a sanctuary. But everyone, she reminded herself, had to start somewhere, and leaving the note suggested some degree of remorse for his behavior, and a desire to take some step towards amendment.

  “Yes, but what does it mean?” demanded Serafimiya. “Why has he gone to a sanctuary?”

  “Because he feels in need of prayer and guidance?” suggested Slava.

  “But why?” wailed Serafimiya. “Why should he need guidance? Why should he need to leave me? What did I do wrong? Do you think”—her face twisted as the horrifying thought struck her—“do you think he’s run off with another woman?”

  It was on the tip of Slava’s tongue to say that if Valery had decided to run off with another woman, he most likely would have told Serafimiya directly and delighted in the pain he caused her, but she stopped herself. Just as the remark was, it would only cause Serafimiya to argue against it and anything else Slava would say after that.

  “Valery Annovich has a very frank and open character,” she said instead. “I believe that he would not lie to you about something like that.”