The Girl in the Tower

by Katherine Arden

  At the greater fire, not far off, the men were elbowing each other, and her brother looked austere, which meant he was annoyed.

  “No—I heard the men’s jokes,” said Katya in a small voice. “They said that you mean to share my bed—” she choked, rallied. “That that was the price for saving us, and taking us home. I—I understand, but I am sorry, Gosudar, I am frightened.”

  Vasya gaped, realized she was gaping, swallowed her stew, and said, “Mother of God.” The men were laughing.

  Katya looked down, knees pressed together.

  Vasya went around the fire and sat down beside the other girl, putting her back to the men around the fire. “Come,” she said low. “You have been brave; are you going to give in to nerves now? Didn’t I promise to see you safe?” She paused, and was not sure what imp prompted her to add, “We are not prizes, after all.”

  Katya looked up. “We?” she breathed. Her eyes slid down Vasya’s body, shapeless in fur, and came at last to rest questioningly on her face.

  Vasya smiled a little, put a finger to her lips, and said, “Come, let us sleep; the children are tired.”

  They slept at last, contentedly, all four together, huddled in Vasya’s cloak and bedroll, with the two younger girls squashed and squirming in between the elder.

  THE THIRD DAY—THE LAST DAY—the girls rode Solovey all four together, as they had when they first fled the downstroke of the bandit-captain’s sword. Vasya held Anyushka and Lenochka in front of her, while Katya sat behind, arms about Vasya’s waist.

  As they neared the village, Katya whispered, “What is your real name?”

  Vasya stiffened, so that Solovey threw his head up, and the little girls squeaked.

  “Please,” added Katya doggedly, when the horse had settled. “I mean no harm, but I wish to pray for you rightly.”

  Vasya sighed. “It really is Vasya,” she said. “Vasilisa Petrovna. But that is a great secret.”

  Katya said nothing. The other riders had drawn a little ahead. When they were screened a moment by a stand of trees, Vasya put a hand into her saddlebag, withdrew a handful of silver, and slipped it into the girl’s sleeve.

  Katya hissed. “Are you—bribing me to keep your secret? I owe you my life.”

  “I—no,” said Vasya, startled. “No. Don’t look at me like that. This is your dowry, and the two little ones’, too. Keep it against need. Buy fine cloth—buy a cow.”

  Katya said nothing, for a long moment. It was only when Vasya had turned back around and nudged Solovey to catch up with the others that Katya spoke, low in her ear. “I will keep it—Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Katya. “I will keep your secret, too. And I will love you forever.”

  Vasya took the girl’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

  They broke from the last trees, and the girls’ village lay spread before them, roofs sparkling in the late-winter sun. Its people had begun to clear away the worst of the ruin. Smoke rose from the undamaged chimneys, and the black look of utter desolation had gone.

  One kerchiefed head jerked up at the sound of oncoming hoofbeats. Then another, then another. Screams split the morning, and Katya’s arms tightened. Then someone called, “Nay—hush—look at the horses. Those are no raiders.”

  Folk rushed out of their houses, clustering and staring. “Vasya!” called Dmitrii. “Come, ride beside me, boy.”

  Vasya had kept Solovey near the back of the cavalcade, but now she found herself smiling. “Hold on,” she told Katya. Taking a firmer grip on the children, she nudged Solovey. The horse, delighted, broke into a gallop.

  So the last distance to Katya’s village was covered with Vasilisa Petrovna and the Grand Prince of Moscow galloping side by side. The cries grew louder and louder as the riders approached, and then a single woman, standing upright and alone, cried, “Anyushka!” The horses leaped the half-cleared remains of the palisade, and then they were surrounded.

  Solovey stood still while the two little ones were handed down into the arms of weeping women.

  Blessings rained down on the riders; screams and prayers and cries of “Dmitrii Ivanovich!” and “Aleksandr Peresvet!”

  “Vasilii the Brave,” Katya told the villagers. “He saved us all.”

  The villagers took up the cry. Vasya glared, and Katya smiled. Then the girl froze. A single woman had not come out to join the crowd. She stood apart from the rest, barely visible in the shadow of her izba.

  “Mother,” Katya breathed, in a voice that sent a jolt of unlooked-for pain through Vasya. Then Katya slid down Solovey’s flank and was running.

  The woman opened her arms and caught her daughter to her. Vasya did not see. It hurt to look. She looked instead at the door of the izba. Just in the doorway stood the small, sturdy domovoi, with ember eyes and twig-fingers and grinning face all covered with soot.

  It was just a glimpse. Then the crowd surged and the domovoi disappeared. But Vasya thought she saw one small hand, raised in salute.

  14.

  The City Between Rivers

  “Well,” said Dmitrii, with relish, when the forest had swallowed Katya’s village and they rode again on unmarked snow. “You have played the hero, Vasya; all well and good. But enough of coddling children; we must hurry on now.” A pause. “I think your horse agrees with me.”

  Solovey was bucking amiably, pleased with the sun after a week of snow, and pleased to have the weight of three people off his back.

  “He certainly does,” Vasya panted. “Mad thing,” she added to the horse in exasperation. “Will you attempt to walk now?”

  Solovey deigned to come to earth, but instead of bucking, he pranced and kicked until Vasya leaned forward to glare into one unrepentant eye. “For heaven’s sake,” she said, while Dmitrii laughed.

  They rode until dark that day, and their pace only increased as the week wore on. The men ate their bread in the dark and rode from first light until shadows swallowed the trees. They followed woodcutters’ paths and broke trail when they had to. The snow was crusted on top, a deep powder beneath, and it was heavy going. After a week, only Solovey, of all the horses, was bright-eyed and light of foot.

  On the last night before Moscow, darkness caught them in the shelter of trees, just on the bank of the Moskva. Dmitrii called the halt, peering down at the expanse of river. The moon was waning by then, and troubled clouds smothered the stars. “Better camp here,” said the prince. “Easy riding tomorrow and home by midmorning.” He slid off his horse, buoyant still, though he had lost weight in the long days. “A good measure of mead tonight,” he added, raising his voice. “And perhaps our warrior-monk will have caught rabbits for us.”

  Vasya dismounted with the others and broke the ice from Solovey’s whiskers. “Moscow tomorrow,” she whispered to him, with jumping heart and cold hands. “Tomorrow!”

  Solovey arched his neck, untroubled, and shoved her with his nose. Have you any bread, Vasya?

  She sighed, unsaddled him, rubbed him down, fed him a crust, and left him to nose about for grass under the snow. There was wood to chop, and snow to scrape away, a fire to build, a sleeping-trench to dig. The men all called her Vasya now; they teased her as they worked. She had found, to her surprise, that she could give as good as she got, in the coin of their rough humor.

  They were all laughing when Sasha returned. Three dead rabbits swung from his hand and an unstrung bow lay over his shoulder. The men raised a cheer, blessed him, and set the meat to stewing. The flames of their campfires leaped bravely now, and the men passed skins of mead and waited for their supper.

  Sasha went to where Vasya was digging her sleeping-trench. “Is all well with you?” he asked her, a little stiffly. He had never quite settled on a tone to use with his brother-who-was-really-his-sister.

  Vasya grinned roguishly at him. His bemused but determined effort to keep her safe on the road had eased her gnawing loneliness. “I’d like to sleep on an oven, and eat stew that someone else made,” she said. “But I am well, brother.”

>   “Good,” said Sasha. His gravity jarred after the men’s jokes. He handed her a little stained bundle. She unwrapped the raw livers of the three rabbits, dark with blood.

  “God bless you,” Vasya managed before she bit into the first. The sweet-salt-metal life taste exploded across her tongue. Behind her Solovey squealed; he disliked the smell of blood. Vasya ignored him.

  Her brother slipped away before she finished. Vasya watched him go, licking her fingers, wondering how she might ease the growing worry in his face.

  She finished digging, and sank down onto a log drawn near the fire. Chin on fist, she watched Sasha as he blessed the men, blessed their meat, and drank his mead, inscrutable, on the other side of the flames. Sasha spoke no word when the blessings were done; even Dmitrii had begun to remark how silent Brother Aleksandr had been since the Lavra.

  He is troubled, of course, Vasya thought, because I am dressed as a boy, and I fought bandits, and he has lied to the Grand Prince. But we had no choice, Brother—

  “Quite the hero, your brother,” said Kasyan, breaking into her thoughts. He sat down beside her and offered her his skin of mead.

  “Yes,” replied Vasya, with some sharpness. “Yes, he is.” There was something almost—not quite—mocking, in Kasyan’s voice. She did not take the honey-wine.

  Kasyan seized her mittened hand and slapped the vessel into it. “Drink,” he said. “I meant no insult.”

  Vasya hesitated, then drank. She still had not gotten used to this man: to his secret eyes and sudden laughter. His face had perhaps paled a little, with the week of travel, but that only made the colors of him more vivid. She would meet his glance at odd moments, and fight down a blush, though she had never been a girl for simpering. How would he react, she sometimes found herself wondering, if he knew I was a girl?

  Don’t think of it. He will never know.

  The silence between them stretched out, but he made no move to go. To break it, Vasya asked, “Have you been to Moscow before, Kasyan Lutovich?”

  His lips quirked. “I came to Moscow not long after the year turned, to rally the Grand Prince to my cause. But before that? Once. Long ago.” An arid suggestion of feeling just tinged his voice. “Perhaps every young fool goes seeking his heart’s desire in cities. I never went back, until this winter.”

  “What was your heart’s desire, Kasyan Lutovich?” Vasya asked.

  He gave her a look of good-natured scorn. “Are you my grandmother now? You are showing your small years, Vasilii Petrovich. What do you think? I loved a woman.”

  Across the fire, Sasha’s head turned.

  Dmitrii had been making jokes and watching the stew like a cat at a mouse-hole (their rations did not suit his appetite), but he overheard and spoke first. “Did you, Kasyan Lutovich?” he asked interestedly. “A Muscovite woman?”

  “No,” said Kasyan, speaking now to the listening company. His voice was soft. “She came from far away. She was very beautiful.”

  Vasya bit her lower lip. Kasyan usually kept to himself. He was silent more often than speaking, except that he and Dmitrii sometimes rode side by side, passing a companionable wineskin. But now everyone was listening.

  “What happened to her?” asked Dmitrii. “Come, let us have the story.”

  “I loved her,” said Kasyan carefully. “She loved me. But she disappeared, on the day I was to have taken her away to Bashnya Kostei, to be my own. I never saw her again.” A pause. “She is dead now,” he added, sharply. “That is all. Get me some stew, Vasilii Petrovich, before these gluttons eat it all.”

  Vasya got up to do so. But she wondered very much at Kasyan’s expression. Nostalgic tenderness, when he talked of his dead lover. But—just for an instant, and right at the end—there had been such an expression of baffled rage that her blood crept. She went to eat her soup with Solovey, resolving to think no more of Kasyan Lutovich.

  WINTER WAS STILL DIAMOND-HARD, full of black frosts and dead beggars, but the old, rigid snow had begun to show its age on the day Dmitrii Ivanovich rode back into Moscow beside his cousins: the monk Aleksandr Peresvet and the boy Vasilii Petrovich. With him also were Kasyan and his followers, who, at Dmitrii’s urging, had not gone home.

  “Come, man—come to Moscow and be my guest for Maslenitsa,” said Dmitrii. “The girls are prettier in Moscow than in your old tower of bones.”

  “I do not doubt it,” Kasyan said wryly. “Though I think you wish to secure my taxes, Gosudar.”

  Dmitrii bared his teeth. “That, too,” he said. “Am I wrong?”

  Kasyan only laughed.

  They rose that morning in a fine spitting haze of snowflakes and rode down to Moscow along the vast sweep of the Moskva. The city was a white crown on the dark hilltop, blurred by curtains of blown snow. Her pale walls smelled of lime; her towers seemed to split the sky. Sasha could never still a leap of his heart at the sight.

  Vasya was riding beside him, snow in her eyebrows. Her smile was infectious. “Today, Sashka,” she said, when the first towers came into sight, thrusting above the gray-white world. “We will see Olga today.” Solovey had caught his rider’s mood; he was almost dancing as they walked.

  The role of Vasilii Petrovich had grown on Vasya like skin. If she did tricks on Solovey, they cheered her; if she picked up a spear, Dmitrii laughed at her clumsiness and promised her teaching. If she asked questions, they were answered. A hesitant happiness had begun to show in her expressive face. Sasha felt his lie the more keenly for it, and did not know what to do.

  Dmitrii had taken to her. He had promised her a sword, a bow, a fine coat. “A place at court,” Dmitrii said. “You will attend my councils, and command men, when you are older.”

  Vasya had nodded, flushed with pleasure, while Sasha looked on, gritting his teeth. God grant Olya knows what to do, he thought. Because I do not.

  WHEN THE SHADOW OF THE GATE fell on her face, Vasya drew a wondering breath. The gates of Moscow were made of iron-bound oak, soaring to five times her height and guarded above and below. More wondrous still were the walls themselves. In that land of forests, Dmitrii had poured out his father’s gold, his people’s blood, to build Moscow’s walls of stone. Scorch marks about the base gave credit to his foresight.

  “See there?” said Dmitrii, pointing at one of these places. “That is when Algirdas came with the Litovskii, three years ago, and laid siege to the city. It was a near-fought thing.”

  “Will they come again?” Vasya asked, staring at the burned places.

  The Grand Prince laughed. “Not if they are wise. I married the firstborn daughter of the prince of Nizhny Novgorod, barren bitch that she is. Algirdas would be a fool to try her father and me together.”

  The gates groaned open; the walled city blotted out the sky. Bigger than anything Vasya had ever heard of. For a moment she wanted to flee.

  “Courage, country boy,” said Kasyan.

  Vasya shot him a grateful look and urged Solovey forward.

  The horse went when she asked, though with an unhappy ear. They passed through the gate: a pale arch that echoed the sound of people shouting.

  “The prince!”

  The call was picked up and carried about the narrow ways of Moscow. “The Grand Prince of Moscow! God bless you, Dmitrii Ivanovich!” And even, “Bless us! The warrior-monk! The warrior of the light! Brother Aleksandr! Aleksandr Peresvet!”

  Out and out the cry rippled, borne away and back, torn up and re-formed, whirling like leaves in a tempest. People ran through the streets, and a crowd gathered about the gates of the kremlin. Dmitrii rode in travel-stained dignity. Sasha reached down for the people’s hands and made the sign of the cross over them. Tears sparked in an old lady’s eyes; a maiden raised trembling fingers.

  Beneath the shouts, Vasya caught snatches of ordinary conversation. “Look at the bay stallion there. Have you ever seen his like?”

  “No bridle.”

  “And that—that is a mere boy on his back. A feather, to ride such a horse.”r />
  “Who is he?”

  “Who indeed?”

  “Vasilii the Brave,” Kasyan put in, half-laughing.

  The people took it up. “Vasilii the Brave!”

  Vasya narrowed her eyes at Kasyan. He shrugged, hiding a smile in his beard. She was grateful for the sharp breeze, which gave her an excuse to pull hood and cap closer about her face.

  “You are a hero, I find, Sasha,” she said, when her brother came riding up beside her.

  “I am a monk,” he replied. His eyes were bright. Tuman stepped easily beneath him, neck arched.

  “Do all monks get such names? Aleksandr Lightbringer?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I would stop them if I could. It is unchristian.”

  “How did you get this name?”

  “Superstition,” he said, tersely.

  Vasya opened her mouth to pry the tale out, but just then a troop of muffled children came capering almost under Solovey’s hooves. The stallion skidded to a halt and half-reared, trying not to maim anyone.

  “Be careful!” she told them. “It’s all right,” she added to the horse, soothingly. “We’ll be through in a minute. Listen to me, listen, listen—”

  The horse calmed, barely. At least he put all four feet on the ground. I do not like it here, he told her.

  “You will,” she said. “Soon. Olga’s husband will have good oats in his stable, and I will bring you honeycakes.”

  Solovey twitched his ears, unconvinced. I cannot smell the sky.

  Vasya had no answer to that. They had just passed the huts, the smithies, the warehouses and shops that made up the outer rings of Moscow, and now they had come to the heart of the city: the cathedral of the Ascension, the monastery of the Archangel, and the palaces of princes.

  Vasya stared up, and her eyes shone in the towers’ reflected light. All the bells in Moscow had burst into pealing. The sound rattled her teeth. Solovey stamped and shivered.

  She put a calming hand on the stallion’s neck, but she had no words for him, no words for her delighted astonishment, as she learned all at once the beauty and the scale of things made by men.