by E. P. Clark
“So I won’t actually have to kill myself, then.”
The leshaya shrugged, or at least moved her branches in a way that I took to be a shrug. “I cannot see the future, little Dariyevna, at least not so clearly. And that is not why I am here, in any case. I hardly would have left my groves just to solve your petty troubles.”
“Fair enough. So what are planning to ask of me, then?”
“You renewed Darya Krasnoslavovna’s oath,” said the leshaya. “And sealed it with blood before a prayer tree, as did your daughter.”
“We did,” I agreed.
“We thought you should be rewarded for that,” said the leshaya. “We thought you should be assured that we still exist, even if we are little seen of late, and that we are still watching over you.”
“I am honored.”
“You stand next in line for the rule of Zem’, do you not, sister? And your daughter after you?”
“Yes,” I said, while something clutched at my heart.
“Is that why you were in despair, sister?” asked the leshaya. “Fear of the burden that may soon be laid upon you?”
“Have you seen something?!” I cried. “Something about Sera…?”
“No, sister, no. Not as such. But do you fear this burden that much?”
“I fear losing my sister,” I said. “And I fear that I would make a poor ruler. But that is unlikely to drive me to despair. No, it was…well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing worth mentioning.”
The leshaya surveyed me with her solemn green eyes. “They say that women suffer much from affairs of the heart, sister,” she said eventually. “Is that what troubles you?”
“Yes,” I said, embarrassed to find myself whispering and looking away from the shame of my confession.
“They say it is a pain that some find almost unbearable, sister,” said the leshaya, and her voice was gentle. “I would not know, of course, no more than I would know the pain of bringing a human child into the world, but they say that our human sisters suffer greatly for this privilege, both in body and in spirit.”
“Yes. But my current suffering is stupid, not even worth mentioning.”
“Do you think it likely it will drive you to despair again, sister?” asked the leshaya, still speaking gently, more gently than anyone had spoken with me in a while, perhaps forever. I did not tend to inspire gentleness in those around me.
“I hope not,” I said. “But I can make no promises. My heart is so foolish…I should be stronger than this, but I am not.”
“Strength is good,” said the leshaya for the second time. “But we do not always have it at the time and in the quantities that we need it. I believe your human sisters would try to comfort you here. I do not know how to comfort a human. But you wanted to know what we were planning to ask of you. First and foremost, we will ask you to live a little longer. After all, what is your hurry? You have the rest of your life to take it. There are always other pools of water, other snowdrifts, other knives, other vials of poison, other coils of rope. Or if you prefer, there is always strong drink, that method that so many of your sisters have taken. Its action is slower than the others, but nearly as sure, and the pain is less. Or so they say. But it will always be there if you need it.”
“That is more soothing than it should be. It seems you do know how to comfort humans.”
The leshaya made that movement than in a human would have been a shrug again. “I have spent much time with your family, little sister,” she said. “They are all peculiar. I do not think that would have worked on many other women.”
“Well, be that as it may. You don’t want me to kill myself immediately. That I can do. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much danger of it while Mirochka and Sera are depending on me.”
“I know, little sister. We also have another request.”
“I will do what I can.”
“We would like you to give us your daughter.” Seeing my expression, the leshaya hurried on, “for a little while, that is. And it does not have to be now. You are going on a journey, are you not?”
“I am. Tomorrow.”
“Very well. When you return, then, and only for a little while. But we would like to have the chance to teach her about us, about this other strain in her blood, before she becomes Empress.”
Something squeezed in my heart again. “You think she will become Empress?” I asked.
“We have seen it, sister,” said the leshaya.
“And…Sera?”
The leshaya made another shrug-like motion. “We do not know,” she said. “But one day your daughter will sit the Wooden Throne. How that will come about is up to you.”
“How so?”
“We do not know, sister.” The leshaya poked me again with one of her hand-like branches. “Many things are possible, but all of them lead to your daughter ruling our country. But it is promising that she has already sworn to uphold your family’s oaths to us. And so we ask that you send her to us before she comes of age.” She must have seen hesitation on my face, for she continued more forcefully, “It is no more than what your foremother Krasnoslava did for her daughter. Darya Krasnoslavovna traveled all over Zem’, and beyond its borders too, and spent much time with spirits, and received much good from it. Let it be the same for your daughter.”
“What else have you seen of her fate?” I asked.
Now it was the leshaya’s turn to hesitate, which made my heart squeeze again. “Nothing that a mother need fear, sister,” she said finally. “In truth, we have seen very little. Both of you have open roads before you, and what you will pass through before you arrive at your final destination is unknown. All we can say is that the destination is the throne in Krasnograd.”
“For me as well?” I asked.
“Perhaps, perhaps not, sister. It is up to you.”
“Very well,” I said. “Mirochka will spend time with you before she comes of age. I agree that it is her birthright, and will do her good. Perhaps next summer.”
“Perhaps, sister,” said the leshaya. “I am glad we are agreed. It gives me joy to think that the close ties we once had with our human sisters will be renewed. And sister?”
“Yes?”
The leshaya stepped up and folded me into her branches. “I am sorry for your sorrow,” she said. “I wish I could say that you will soon be released from it, but your path is so wide-open that I cannot be sure. Perhaps it is the steppe in you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “It’s a stupid sorrow anyway.”
“There is no such thing as a stupid sorrow, sister,” said the leshaya. “Even if the cause seems foolish, sorrow itself is always a source of strength. Whether that strength will crush you down or raise you up is up to you.”
“I suppose that is comforting,” I said.
“I am glad, sister. And sister?” The leshaya held me out at branches’ length. “I have just seen something as I held you close. It is the steppe in you. You will find at least some of what you are looking for when you return there.”
“Did you see how?” I asked. “Or what?”
“Just that you will find it, sister,” said the leshaya. “And with that thought, I will leave you.”
“Thank you,” I told her. “Thank you for showing yourself to me.”
She stroked my cheek with one twig. “Your family always gives me joy, sister. I feel that we will meet again. Go in peace and plenty, sister.”
“You too,” I said. The leshaya blinked a long slow blink at me, and then, before I could realize what had happened, she had faded back into the trees. I strained my eyes, trying to make her out, but I could not even see her movement, and after a few breaths the sound of her passage had disappeared as well, leaving me standing by the pool as if she had never been there. I looked down. Well, not quite as if she had never been there. There were strange tracks in front of where I was standing. I followed them for a couple of paces, but then they, too, disappeared.
“I wonder how many leshiye a
re hidden in this park,” I said out loud. I half-expected to hear an answer on the wind that was ruffling the tops of the trees, but no voice other than that of the woods could be heard. I turned around and surveyed my little clearing, but received no further clues on what action to take next, so after standing there for another moment, I set off back to the kremlin.
***
Walking made my head whirl again, but as there was nowhere to sit down and I didn’t think I was any danger of collapsing—how often had I suffered these symptoms at the end of that fatal summer, miserably unhappy and with child as I was!—so I kept going. Within very few paces I was back on one of the many well-trodden paths running through the park, and shortly after that I heard the sound of a party on horseback, and when I came around the corner, I found Mirochka, Ivan, the tsarinoviches, and their guards all riding to meet me.
“Mama!” cried Mirochka. “What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?”
“I was just walking through the park,” I told her. “But I’m glad I came across you. How is your ride?”
“Fine, except that even in the shade it’s too hot,” she complained.
“Well, that is what you get for going riding at midday on Midsummer. Let us walk back to the stables together.” Accordingly the riding party all turned around, and we began strolling slowly back the way they had come.
“Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Ivan suddenly, riding up to join me and Mirochka. “Let me offer you my mount.”
“What?” I said. “Of course not. I mean, I thank you, but I don’t mind walking at all.”
“You must be tired from your earlier exertions, Valeriya Dariyevna,” he continued stubbornly. “You must have walked halfway cross the park already.”
“I suppose,” I said distractedly. “But that’s unlikely to tire me out.”
“But still…You seem tired, Valeriya Dariyevna, if you will permit the observation.”
“Observe away. But there’s no need for you to get off your horse.” I would have said more, but it was slowly starting to reach me that my behavior to him was off somehow, or at least different from what it had always been before, and he was puzzled and uneasy by it. “I have much on my mind right now,” I told him, trying to summon up an apologetic smile. “Walking will do me good. Ride on with the tsarinoviches, and if you get ahead of me, I will meet you back at the stable.”
“As you wish, Valeriya Dariyevna,” he said, still looking puzzled and even, I thought, a little hurt, but before I could come up with a way to smooth over what had just happened, he rode on ahead of us. I watched him go. He cut a very fine figure on horseback. If only I could care about that sort of thing. The sensation that I was drowning in water or encased in glass had returned, and even the sight of a handsome man whom I was supposed to be pursuing could only reach me from a distance. All I could think about when I saw him—although that, too, came to me from a distance—was how easily he might succumb to another woman’s charms, which suppressed his own charms almost entirely. Probably best not to think of it.
“I have great news,” I said suddenly to Mirochka, now that all the boys had ridden on ahead.
“What, mama? What is it? Am I going on the journey with you?” she asked in a sudden inspiration of hope.
“No. Not this time. Your family needs you to stay here.”
“You’re my family, mama. Well, and grandmamma and grandpapa and uncle, but they’re back home on the steppe. If they need me, I should travel back with you. You’ll have to go back through the steppe on your way to the mountains, won’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “But that’s not your only family. The Tsarina and Vyacheslav Irinovich and your brothers are all your family too, and they need you here while I’m gone.”
“What for, mama?”
“To keep them company, and to learn how to be proper noblewoman,” I told her, trying to sound as if I supported the project.
“You’re a noblewoman, mama! I should learn from you!”
“True enough,” I agreed. “But there is more than one way of being a noblewoman, and you should learn from models other than me.”
“I don’t want to, mama! I don’t want to be like these silly helpless black earth people! They…they have nothing but black earth for brains!”
“These black earth women are also your people, my dear,” I said, getting sucked despite myself into an argument that had little to do with my original purpose.
“Just because my father is a black earth prince doesn’t mean I am! You said so yourself, mama!”
“So I did,” I said, trying to extract myself from the situation before it devolved into a ridiculous disagreement between myself and a girl of eight. “But that’s not what I meant, my dove. I meant that one day you could find yourself ruling Zem’, all of Zem’, including the black earth district, and the North, and the Southern mountains, and…well, all of it. So it would be best if you learned what all these people are like.”
“They’re all Zemnians like us, mama!” cried Mirochka, who was clearly in the mood to argue.
“Yes, but there are different kinds of Zemnians, you know, my dove, and in the Southern mountains they’re not even Zemnians like the rest of us—they have a different language than we do, and different gods.”
“All the Southerners I know speak Zemnian,” said Mirochka skeptically.
“Yes, the nobles speak it when they are with us,” I explained. “But in general people there speak a different language.”
“So I should learn their language then, mama!”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I agreed. “Perhaps you can start while I’m gone, and when I come back you can greet me in a language I don’t know.”
This thought diverted Mirochka from her argumentativeness, and I had to wait for her mirth at the thought of speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand to subside before I could return to my original purpose.
“There is also something else you could learn,” I told her, once she had finished making up words with which she could greet me upon my return. “A journey that you could go on, perhaps as soon as next year.”
“Where, mama?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Perhaps no farther than this park. But you could have the opportunity to learn many interesting things. You see, I have been asked…you have been invited…I saw a leshaya today.”
“Mama! Where? When?”
“Just here, just now. I was in a grove back in the middle of the park, where no one ever goes, and it suddenly appeared and spoke with me.”
“Mama!!!!” She dropped her reins and hugged me, squealing with excitement.
“Don’t frighten your pony, my heart,” I told her, retrieving her reins and handing them back to her.
“Oh mama! You know Yablochko never shies at anything!”
“There’s always a first time. A true horsewoman is always attentive to her horse.”
“Mama! Don’t be so tiresome! A leshaya! How did it happen? Tell me everything!”
“I was sitting in a clearing in the middle of the park…”
“What were you doing there, mama?”
“Sitting, my love, just as I told you.”
“But why? I thought you had things to do today, preparations. Why were you by yourself in the park? Why didn’t you come with us if you wanted to go walking in the park?”
“It just happened,” I said. “I suddenly wanted to, that’s all.”
“Do you think,” her eyes got very round, “do you think you were called out into the park, mama?”
“Perhaps,” I said, thinking that perhaps that was true, although more than likely it was just my own foolishness that had driven me out there. But Mirochka certainly didn’t need to know that.
“And so then what happened, mama?”
“I was sitting there, when all of a sudden something grabbed my shoulder from behind.”
“Mama! Were you scared?”
“I was surprised, but I realized almost immed
iately what it was.”
“So were you scared then? I think”—her eyes grew even rounder—“I think I might be scared if a leshaya came up on me all of a sudden! How big was it, mama?”
“The size of a small tree,” I told her. “It looked like a small fir tree, about twice my size, except that there were two big green eyes in the trunk, and some of the branches were more like hands.”
“And it could walk, of course.”
“And it could walk,” I agreed.
“So then what happened, mama?”
“We talked for a bit.”
“About what, mama, about what?”
“About our family, my dove, and about you. It asked me to allow you to come spend time with them and be taught by them sometime in the future, perhaps next year.”
“Mama!!!!! Really???!!??” I grabbed Yablochko’s reins just in case even her calm temperament was overwhelmed by Mirochka’s piercing shrieks. The rest of the party, who were all many lengths ahead of us, turned around and came trotting swiftly back.
“Is everything all right, Valeriya Dariyevna?” asked Ivan.
“It’s fine,” I told them all. “Mirochka’s just excited, that’s all.”
“Tell them why, mama, tell them why!!!”
“I will, my dear, but first I must speak with the Tsarina about this.” I smiled apologetically at the rest of the group. “There is no cause for concern,” I assured them. “But my daughter and I have important news for the Tsarina, and of course she must be the first to receive it. Once she decides to have it made public, you will be the first to know.”
“Of course, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Ivan, giving me another uncertain look. “Let us continue directly back to the kremlin, then. Valeriya Dariyevna—if there is any rush, I once again offer you my horse. I will be happy to return home on foot, if necessary.”
“Will he carry two?” I asked.
“Alyosha—Aleksey Aleksandrovich—and I have ridden double many times, Valeriya Dariyevna, but…”