They passed the prince of Serpukhov’s gate like wraiths. Below them, the kremlin-gate was open still, in honor of festival-night, and the posad below the kremlin proper was full of red hearth-light and slurred singing.
But Vasya had no care for hearths or songs. The other, older world had hold of her now, with its clean beauty, its mysteries, its savagery. They galloped unremarked through the kremlin-gate, and the horses swung to the right, racing between the feast-filled houses. Then the sound of the horses’ hooves changed, and the river unrolled ribbon-like before them. The smoke of the city fell behind, and all around was snow and clear moonlight.
Vasya was still more than half-drunk, despite the cleansing shock of the night air. She cried aloud, and Solovey’s stride lengthened; then they were galloping down the length of the Moskva. The two horses raced stride for stride across ice and silver snow, and Vasya laughed, teeth bared against the wind.
Morozko rode beside her.
They galloped a long time. When Vasya had ridden enough, she drew Solovey to a walk, and on impulse dived, still laughing, into a snowbank. Sweating under her heavy clothes, she wrenched off both hat and hood and bared her tousled black head to the night.
Morozko pulled up when Solovey halted and dropped lightly onto the river-ice. He had raced with a mad glee to match hers, but now there was something gathered and careful in his expression. “So you are a lord’s son now,” Morozko said.
Some of Vasya’s forgetful ease faded. She got up, brushing herself off. “I like being a lord. Why was I ever born a girl?”
A blue gleam, from beneath veiled lids. “You are none so ill as a girl.”
It was the wine—only the wine—that brought heat to her face. Her mood changed. “Is that all there is for me, then? To be a ghost—someone real and not real? I like being a young lord. I could stay here and help the Grand Prince. I could train horses, and manage men, and wield a sword. But I really cannot, for they will have my secret in time.”
She turned abruptly. The starlight shone in her open eyes. “If I cannot be a lord, I can still be a traveler. I want to ride to the ends of the world, if Solovey will bear me. I would see the green land beyond the sunset, the island—”
“Buyan?” Morozko murmured, from behind her. “Where the waves beat upon a rocky shore, and the wind smells of cold stone and orange blossom? Ruled by a swan-maiden with sea-gray eyes? The land of the fairy tale? Is that what you want?”
The heat of the wine and the wild ride were dimming now, and all around was the deathly hush before the dawn wind rises. Vasya shivered suddenly, cloaked in wolfskin and in the skeins of her black hair. “Is that why you came?” she asked, not turning around. “To tempt me from Moscow? Or are you going to tell me that I am better off here, dressed as a girl, married? Why did the chyerti come to the feasting? Why was the gamayun waiting above—yes, I know what the bird means. What is happening?”
“Are we not permitted to feast with the people?”
She said nothing. She moved again, pacing like a cat in a cage despite the sweep of ice and forest and sky. “I want freedom,” she said at length, almost to herself. “But I also want a place and a purpose. I am not sure I can have either, let alone both. And I do not want to live a lie. I am hurting my brother and sister.” She stopped abruptly and turned. “Can you solve this riddle for me?”
Morozko raised an eyebrow. The dawn wind made eddies of the snow at the horses’ feet. “Am I an oracle?” he asked her coldly. “Can I not come to a feast, ride in the moonlight, without being called on to hear the plaints of Russian maidens? What care I for your little mysteries, or your brother’s conscience? Here is my answer: that you ought not to listen to fairy tales. I spoke truly once: Your world does not care what you want.”
Vasya pressed her lips together. “My sister said the same thing. But what about you? Do you care?”
He fell silent. Clouds were massing overhead. The mare shivered her skin all over.
“You can mock,” Vasya continued, angry now in turn, stepping closer, and closer still. “But you live forever. Perhaps you don’t want anything, or care about anything. And yet—you are here.”
He said nothing.
“Should I live out my life as a false lord, until they find me out and put me in a convent?” she demanded. “Should I run away? Go home? Never see my brothers again? Where do I belong? I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. And I have eaten in your house, and nearly died in your arms, and you rode with me tonight and—I hoped you might know.”
The word sounded foolish even as she said it. She bit her lip. The silence stretched out.
“Vasya,” he said.
“Don’t. You never mean it,” she said, drawing away. “You are immortal, and it is only a game—”
His answer was not in words, but his hands, perhaps, spoke for him when his fingertips found the pulse behind her jaw. She did not move. His eyes were cold and still: pale stars to make her lost. “Vasya,” he said again, low and—almost ragged, into her ear. “Perhaps I am not so wise as you would have me, for all my years in this world. I do not know what you should choose. Every time you take one path, you must live with the memory of the other: of a life left unchosen. Decide as seems best, one course or the other; each way will have its bitter with its sweet.”
“That is not advice,” she said. The wind blew her hair against his face.
“It is all I have,” he said. Then he slid his fingers through her hair and kissed her.
She made a sound like a sob, anger and wanting together. Then her arms went round him.
She had never been kissed before, not thus. Not long and—deliberately. She didn’t know how—but he taught her. Not with words, no: with his mouth, and his fingertips, and a feeling that did not have words. A touch, dark and exquisite, that breathed along her skin.
So she clung and her bones loosened and her whole body lit with cool fire. Even your brothers would call you damned now, she thought, but she utterly did not care. A light wind sent the last of the clouds scudding across the sky, and the stars shone clear on them both.
When he drew away at last, she was wide-eyed, flushed, burning. His eyes were a brilliant, perfect, flame-heart blue, and he could have been human.
He let her go abruptly.
“No,” he said.
“I do not understand.” Her hand was at her mouth, her body trembling, wary as the girl he had once thrown across his saddlebow.
“No,” he said. He dragged a hand through his dark curls. “I did not mean—”
Dawning hurt. She crossed her arms. “Did you not? Why did you come, really?”
He ground his teeth. He had turned away from her, his hands clenched hard. “Because I wanted to tell you—”
He broke off, looked into her face. “There is a shadow over Moscow,” he said. “Yet whenever I try to look deeper, I am turned aside. I do not know what is causing it. Were you not—”
“Were I not what?” Vasya asked, hating her voice as it creaked painfully from her throat.
A pause. The blue flame deepened in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” said Morozko. “But, Vasya—”
It seemed for a moment that he really meant to speak, that some secret would come pouring out. But he sighed and closed his lips. “Vasya, be wary,” he said in the end. “Whatever you choose, be wary.”
Vasya did not really hear him. She stood there cold and tense and burning all at once. No? Why no?
If she’d been older, she would have seen the conflict in his eyes. “I will,” she said. “Thank you for your warning.” She turned, with deliberate steps, and swung onto Solovey’s back.
She had already galloped away, and so she did not see that he stood for a long time, watching her go.
Later, much later, in the chill and bitter hour before dawn, a red light like a flash of fire streaked across the sky over Moscow. The few who saw it called it a portent. But most did not see it. They were asleep, dreaming of summer suns.
Kasyan
Lutovich saw it. He smiled, and he left his room in Dmitrii’s palace to go down into the dooryard and make his final arrangements.
Morozko would have known the flash for what it was. But he did not see, for he was galloping alone, in the wild places of the world, face set and shut against the lonely night.
20.
Fire and Darkness
A fine yellowish sunlight pooled into Vasya’s little room the next day. She awakened at its coy touch and rolled to her feet. Her head throbbed, and she wished heartily that she had shouted less, run less, drunk less, and wept less the night before.
Tonight beat like a drum in her skull. She would tell Dmitrii what she knew, or suspected, of Chelubey. She would whisper her farewells to Olga and Marya, but softly, that they could not hear and call her back. Then she would go. South—south to where the air was warm and no frost-demons could trouble her nights. South. The world was wide, and her family had suffered enough.
But first—this horse-race.
Vasya dressed quickly; cloak and boots went on over her old shirt and jacket and fleece-lined leggings. Then she ran out into the sun. A little warmth breathed down from the sky when she turned her face to the light. Soon the snowdrops would bloom in the hidden places and winter would begin to end.
A flurrying snow, just at dawn, had covered the dooryard. Vasya went at once to Solovey’s paddock, boots crunching.
The stallion’s eye was bright and he breathed like a war-horse before the charge. The filly Zima stood calmly now beside him.
“Try not to win by too much,” Vasya told Solovey, seeing the wildness in him.“I don’t want to be accused of bewitching my horse.”
Solovey only shook his mane and pawed the snow.
Vasya, sighing, said, “And we are leaving tonight, when the revel is at its peak. So you must not exhaust yourself racing—we must be far away before dawn.”
That steadied the horse a bit. She brushed his coat, muttering plans for getting them both, along with her saddlebags, out of the city when darkness fell.
A red edge of sun was just showing over the city walls as Kasyan came into Olga’s dooryard, dressed in silver and gray and fawn, with embroidery on the tilted toes of his boots. He halted at the paddock-fence. Vasya glanced up to find him watching her.
She bore his stare easily. She could bear any gaze after Morozko’s the night before.
“Well met, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said. A little sweat curled the hair at his temples. Vasya wondered if he was nervous. What man wouldn’t be, who had agreed to pit some ordinary horse against Solovey? The thought almost made her smile.
“A fair morning, lord,” Vasya returned, bowing.
Kasyan spared a glance at Solovey. “A groom could make the horse ready, you know. You needn’t dirty yourself.”
“Solovey would not take a groom’s hand,” Vasya said shortly.
He shook his head. “I meant no offense, Vasya. Surely we know each other better than that.”
Did they? She nodded.
“Fortunate boy,” Kasyan said, with another glance at Solovey. “To be so beloved of a horse. Why is that, do you think?”
“Porridge,” Vasya said. “Solovey cannot resist it. What have you come to say to me, Kasyan Lutovich?”
At that, Kasyan leaned forward. Vasya had an arm hooked over Solovey’s back. The horse’s nostrils flared; he stirred uneasily. Kasyan’s eyes caught hers and held them. “I like you, Vasilii Petrovich,” he said. “I have liked you from the moment I saw you, before I knew who you were. You must come south to Bashnya Kostei in the spring. My horses number as the blades of grass, and you may ride them all.”
“I would like that,” said Vasya, though she knew she would be far away in the spring. “If the Grand Prince gives me leave.” For a moment she wished it were true. Horses like blades of grass…
Kasyan’s eye ran over her as though he could dive into her soul and steal her secrets. “Come home with me,” he said low, a new emotion in his voice. “I will give you all you desire. I must only tell you—”
What did he mean? He never finished. At that moment, several horses came rattling through the gate, and a small cavalcade galloped, shouting, across the dooryard, pursued by the angry steward.
Vasya wondered what Kasyan had meant. Tell her what?
Then the young boyars of Dmitrii’s following were all around; the ones who had called their insults in the hall, and jostled her in challenge. They managed their plunging horses between their fur-clad knees, and their bits and stirrups made a warlike music. “Boy!” they called, and “Wolf-cub! Vasya!” They shouted their ribald jokes. One reached down and elbowed Kasyan, asking how it would feel to be beaten by that stripling boy, whose coat hung off him like laundry and whose horse wore no bridle.
Kasyan laughed. Vasya wondered if she had imagined the raw feeling in his voice.
At length the young boyars were persuaded to depart. Outside that snow-filled paddock, outside Vladimir’s wooden gates, the city shook itself awake. A shriek rang out from the tower above, quelled by a slap and a sharp rejoinder. The air smelled of wood-smoke and hundreds of cakes baking.
Kasyan lingered still, a line between his red brows. “Vasya,” he began again. “Last night—”
“Have you no horse to see to yourself?” Vasya asked sharply. “We are rivals now; are we to share confidences?”
Kasyan, mouth twisted, looked her in the face a moment. “Will you—” he began.
But again he was interrupted by a visitor, this one dressed plainly as a sparrow. His hood was up against the chill, his face stern. Vasya swallowed, turned, and bowed. “Brother,” she said.
“Forgive me, Kasyan Lutovich,” said Sasha. “I wish to speak to Vasya alone.”
Sasha looked as though he had been awake a great while, or had never gone to bed.
“God be with you,” Vasya said to Kasyan in polite farewell.
Kasyan looked for a moment taken aback. Then he said, in a cold, strange voice, “You would have done better to heed me,” and stalked away.
A small silence fell when he had gone. That man smells strange, said Solovey.
“Kasyan?” Vasya asked. “How?”
Solovey shook his mane. Dust, he said. And lightning.
“What did Kasyan mean?” Sasha asked her.
“I have no idea,” Vasya replied honestly. She peered into her brother’s face. “What have you been doing?”
“I?” he said. He leaned wearily on the fence. “I am looking for rumors about this man Chelubey, the ambassador of Mamai. Great lords do not just emerge from the woods. In all this city someone should have heard tell of him, even fourth-hand. But for all his magnificence, I can get no news at all.”
“And so?” Vasya rejoined. Green eyes met gray.
“Chelubey has the letter, the horses, the men,” said Sasha slowly. “But he has not the reputation.”
“So you suspect the ambassador is a bandit now, do you?” Vasya asked childishly. “Do you believe me at last?”
Her brother sighed. “If I can come to no better explanation, then yes, I will believe you. Although I have never heard of such a thing.” He paused and added, almost to himself, “If a bandit—or whoever he is—has duped us all so thoroughly, then he must have had help. Where did he get money and scribes and papers and horses and finery to pass himself off as a Tatar lord? Or would the Khan send us such a man? Surely not.”
“Who would possibly help him?” Vasya asked.
Sasha shook his head slowly. “When the race is done, and Dmitrii Ivanovich can be persuaded to heed, you will tell him everything.”
“Everything?” she asked. “Kasyan said we needed proof.”
“Kasyan,” retorted her brother, “is too clever for his own good.”
Their eyes met a second time.
“Kasyan?” she said, answering her brother’s look. “Impossible. Those bandits burned his own villages. He came to Dmitrii Ivanovich to ask for help.”
“Yes,”
said Sasha slowly. His face was still troubled. “That is true.”
“I will tell Dmitrii all I know,” said Vasya in a rush. “But—afterward—I am going to leave Moscow. I will need your help for that. You must look after the filly—my Zima—and be kind to her.”
Her brother stiffened, looked into her face. “Vasya, there is nowhere to go.”
She smiled. “There is the whole world, brother. I have Solovey.”
When he said nothing, she added, with impatience to mask pain, “You know I am right. You cannot send me to a convent; I am not going to marry anyone. I cannot be a lord in Moscow, but I will not be a maiden. I am going away.”
She could not look at him and started instead to comb Solovey’s mane.
“Vasya,” he began.
She still would not look at him.
He made a grinding sound of irritation and stepped between the bars of the fence. “Vasya, you cannot just—”
She turned on him. “I can,” she said. “I will. Lock me up if you want to hinder me.”
She saw him taken aback and then realized that tears had sprung into her eyes.
“It is unnatural,” Sasha said, but in a different voice.
“I know,” she said, resolved, fierce, miserable. “I am sorry.”
Even as she spoke, the great cathedral-bell tolled. It was time. “I will tell you the true story,” Vasya said. “Of Father’s death. Of the Bear. All of it. Before I go.”
“Later,” was all Sasha said, after a pause. “We will talk later. Watch for tricks, little sister. Be as careful as you can. I—I will pray for you.”
Vasya smiled. “Kasyan has no horse, I’ll wager, to match Solovey,” she said. “But I will be glad of your prayers.”
The stallion snorted, tossing his head, and Sasha’s grim expression softened. They embraced with sudden ferocity, and Vasya was enveloped in the childhood-familiar smells of her older brother. She wiped her wet eyes surreptitiously on his shoulder. “Go with God, sister,” murmured Sasha into her ear. Then he stepped back, raising a hand to bless her and the horse. “Do not take the turns too fast. And do not lose.”
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