From childhood, Vasya had been able to walk softly, but now she crept from shadow to shadow with a robber’s care, almost afraid to breathe, keeping the wall on her left. Where was the postern-gate? She avoided the guttering pools of torchlight, watching for the door, watching for guards, listening, listening…
Suddenly from across the dooryard there came a shrieking, as though a thousand cats were having their tails pulled. The dogs in their kennels began to bay.
A torch ran along a gallery above, and a lamp was lit. Then another, and another, as the clamor grew in the dooryard. A woman shrieked. Vasya almost smiled. No room for secrecy now.
Next moment, Vasya tripped over a man’s legs and sprawled in the thick snow. Heart racing, she scrambled up and whirled round. To her right was the postern-gate, sunk in shadow. The single gate-guard sat before it with his head sunk on his breast. It was his legs she had tripped over.
Vasya crept nearer. The man did not move. She put her fingers near his face. No breath. When she shook him by the shoulder, his head lolled on his neck. His throat was cut, gashed deep, and that was not pools of shadow on the snow but blood—
The noise in the dooryard was mounting. Suddenly a rush of bodies—four—six—strong, soft-footed men, darted out of the shadows opposite her and made for the palace steps. Kasyan let them in during the revel, Vasya thought. I am too late. Gathering her strength, she dug her numb hands beneath the dead guard’s arms and dragged him away, breathing a prayer for his soul, slipping on the snow.
As soon as she opened the gate, Sasha thrust his way past her into the dooryard.
“Where is Rodion?” she demanded.
Her brother only shook his head, eyes already up on the swimming shadows, the scrum of bodies, firelight and darkness, a new and unmistakable sound of fighting. A man fell through the fine screen-work that protected the stairs and fell yelling into the dooryard. The dogs still bayed in the kennels. Vasya thought she glimpsed Kasyan, standing taut before the palace-gate, his red hair black in the darkness.
Then above it all rose a roaring battle-cry—reassuringly hale but hoarse with surprise and urgency—the voice of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
“Mitya,” Sasha breathed. Something in that childish nickname—probably not said to Dmitrii’s face since he was crowned at sixteen—held a living echo of their shared youth, and Vasya thought suddenly, That is why he did not come back. However he loved us, he loves this prince more, and Dmitrii needed him.
“Stay here, Vasya,” said Sasha. “Hide. Bar the gate.” Then he was running, sword aflame with the light from above, straight toward the melee. Guards from all over the dooryard were converging. Then a shattering crash came from the main gate. The guards’ steps faltered, and they wavered between the threat behind and the threat above. Sasha did not hesitate. He had reached the foot of the southern staircase, and bounded up into darkness.
Vasya barred the gate as Sasha had bidden her, then stood a moment in the shadows, indecisive. Her gaze went from the quivering main gate, to the bewildered palace guards, to the lights swinging wildly behind the palace’s slitted windows.
She heard her brother’s voice shouting, the ring of his sword. Vasya breathed a prayer for his life, and made for the stable. If she were to do anything for the Grand Prince besides cry warnings, she needed her horse.
She reached the long, low stable and flattened herself once more into the shadows.
A guard in the dooryard wailed and fell, pierced by an arrow shot from over the wall. The whole dooryard was alive with shouting, full of running, bewildered men, many of them drunk. More arrows flew. More men fell. Above the noise she heard Dmitrii’s voice again, desperate now. Vasya prayed Sasha would reach him in time.
The battering redoubled at the gate. She had to get to Solovey. Was he there? Had he been killed, taken somewhere else, wounded…?
Vasya pursed her lips and whistled.
She was rewarded immediately and with a rush of relief by a familiar, furious neigh. Then a crash, as though Solovey meant to kick the stable down. The other horses began to squeal, and soon the whole building was in uproar. Another sound joined the tumult: a whistling, wailing cry unlike that of any horse Vasya had ever heard.
Vasya listened a moment to the shouts of the half-awake grooms. Then, judging her time, she darted inside.
She found chaos, nearly as bad as that in the dooryard without. Panicked horses thrashed in their stalls; the grooms did not know whether to calm them or go investigate the clamor outside. The grooms were all slaves, unarmed and frightened. The hiss and snarl of arrows was clearly audible now, and the screams.
“Do what you must and get out,” said a small voice. “The enemy is near and you are frightening us.” Vasya raised her eyes to the shadows of the hayloft and saw a pair of tiny eyes, set in a small face, scowling down at her. She lifted a hand in acknowledgment.
Chyerti fade, she thought. But they are not gone. The thought lifted her heart. Then she frowned, for the stable was lit by a strange glow.
She slipped down the row of stalls, keeping out of sight of the hurrying grooms. As she went the glow strengthened. Her soundless steps faltered.
Kasyan’s golden mare was glowing. Her mane and tail seemed to drip shards of light. She still wore the golden bridle: bit, reins, and all. She slanted one ear at Vasya and snorted a soft breath: pale mist hazed with her light.
Three stalls down from the mare stood Solovey, watching her with pitched ears, two horses standing still in the midst of the tumult. He, too, wore a bridle, fastened tight to the door of the stall, and his forefeet were hobbled. Vasya ran the last ten steps and threw her arms around the stallion’s neck.
I was afraid you would not come, Solovey said. I did not know where to go to find you. You smell of blood.
She collected herself, fumbled for the buckles of the stallion’s headstall, and with a wrench let the whole contraption fall to the floor. “I am here,” Vasya whispered. “I am here. Why is Kasyan’s horse glowing?”
Solovey snorted and shook his head, relieved of the binding. She is the greatest of us, he said. The greatest and the most dangerous. I did not know her at first—I did not believe she could be taken by force.
The mare watched them with pricked ears and a steady watchful expression in her two burning eyes. Let me loose, she said.
Horses speak mostly with their ears and bodies, but Vasya heard this voice in her bones.
“The greatest of you?” Vasya whispered to Solovey.
Set me free.
Solovey scraped the floor uneasily. Yes. Let us go, he said. Let us go into the forest—this is no place for us.
“No,” she echoed. “This is no place for us. But we must bide awhile. There are debts to pay.” She cut the hobbles from about the stallion’s feet.
Free me, said the golden mare again. Vasya rose slowly. The mare was watching them with an eye like molten gold. Power, barely contained, seemed to roil under her skin.
Vasya, said Solovey uneasily.
Vasya barely heard. She was staring into the mare’s eye, like the pale heart of a fire, and she took one step, then another. Behind her Solovey squealed. Vasya!
The mare mouthed her foamy, golden bit and looked straight back at Vasya. Vasya realized that she was afraid of this horse, when she had never been afraid of a horse in her life.
Perhaps it was that, more than anything else—a revulsion to fear that she should not have felt—that made Vasya reach out, seize a golden buckle, and wrench the bridle from the mare’s head.
The mare froze. Vasya froze. Solovey froze. It seemed the world hung still in its skies. “What are you?” she whispered to the mare.
The mare bent her head—slowly, it seemed, so slowly—to touch the discarded heap of gold, and then raised her head to touch Vasya’s cheek with her nose.
Her flesh was burning hot, and Vasya jerked back with a gasp. When she put a hand to her face, she felt a blister rising.
Then the world moved
again; behind her Solovey was rearing. Vasya, get back.
The mare flung her head up. Vasya backed away. The mare reared, and Vasya thought her heart would stop with the fearful beauty of it. She felt a blast of heat on her face, and her breath stilled in her throat. I was foaled, Solovey had told her once. Or perhaps I was hatched. She backed up until she could feel Solovey’s breath on her back, until she could fumble away the bars of his stall, never taking her eyes off the golden mare—mare?
Nightingale, Vasya thought. Solovey means nightingale.
Were there not others, then? Horses that were— This mare…No. Not a mare. Not a mare at all. For before Vasya’s eyes, the rearing horse became a golden bird, greater than any bird Vasya had ever seen, with wings of flame, blue and orange and scarlet.
“Zhar Ptitsa,” Vasya said, tasting the words as though she had never sat at Dunya’s feet hearing tales of the firebird.
The beating of the bird’s wings fanned scorching heat onto her face, and the edges of her feathers were exactly like flames, streaming smoke. Solovey shrilled a cry that was half fear and half triumph. All around, horses squealed and kicked in their fright.
The heat rippled and steamed in the winter air. The firebird broke the bars of the stall as though they were twigs and hurled herself up, up toward the roof, dripping sparks like rain. The roof was no barrier. The bird tore through it, trailing light. Up and up she went, bright as a sun, so that the night became day. Somewhere in the dooryard, Vasya heard a roar of rage.
She watched the bird go, lips parted, wondering, terrified, silent. The firebird had left a trail of flames that were already catching in the hay. A finger of fire raced up a tinder-dry post and a new heat scorched Vasya’s burned cheek.
All around, flames began to rise, and bitter smoke, shockingly fast.
With a cry, Vasya recalled herself and ran to free the horses. For a moment she thought she saw the small, hay-colored stable-spirit beside her, and it hissed, “Idiot girl, to free the firebird!” Then it was gone, opening stall-doors even faster than she.
Some of the grooms had run already, leaving the doors gaping open; the breezes whispered in to fan the flames. Others, bewildered but afraid for their charges, ran to help with the horses, indistinct shapes in the smoke. Vasya and Solovey, the grooms, and the little vazila began pulling the terrified horses out. The smoke choked them all, and more than once Vasya was nearly trampled.
At length, Vasya came to her own Zima, taken into the Grand Prince’s stable and now rearing panicked in a stall. Vasya dodged the flying hooves, yanked away the bars of her stall. “Get out,” she told her, fiercely. “That way. Go!” The order and a slap on the quarters sent the scared filly running for the door.
Solovey appeared at Vasya’s shoulder. Flames all around them now, spinning like spring dancers. The heat scorched her face. For an instant Vasya thought she saw Morozko, dressed in black.
Solovey squealed when a burning straw struck his flank. Vasya, we must get out.
Not every horse had been freed; she could hear the cries of the few remaining, lost in the flames.
“No! They will—” But her protest died unfinished.
The shriek of a familiar voice had sounded from the dooryard.
25.
The Girl in the Tower
Vasya threw herself onto Solovey and he galloped out of the barn, while the flames snapped wolflike at their heels. They emerged into some lurid parody of daylight; flames from the burning barn cast a hellish glow over dooryard and lights shone from every part of Dmitrii’s palace.
There was a pitched battle in the dooryard, and a roaring like a riot above. She couldn’t see her brother—but Vasya could hardly tell friend from foe in the wicked light.
Long cracks had appeared in the main gate; it would not hold much longer. Slaves ran with buckets and wet blankets to put out the flames; half the guardsmen were helping them now. Fire was just as great a danger as arrows, in a city made all of wood.
Then that half-familiar shriek came again. The light from the burning barn threw the whole yard into flickering relief, and she saw Konstantin Nikonovich creeping along the inner wall.
What is he doing here? Vasya wondered. At first she felt nothing but surprise.
Then she saw with horror that the priest clutched a child by one wrist. The girl had no cloak, no kerchief, no boots. She was shivering miserably.
“Aunt Vasya!” she shrilled, in a voice Vasya knew. “Aunt Vasya!” Her voice sailed clear through the sweltering air. “Let me go!”
“Masha!” Vasya cried in disbelief. A child? A prince’s daughter? Here?
Then she saw Kasyan Lutovich. He was running down into the dooryard, mouth open with mingled rage and triumph. He leaped bareback onto one of the escaped horses, wheeled, and came galloping along the wall, heedless of arrows.
For a breath, Vasya did not understand.
In that moment, with a perfectly timed movement, Kasyan overtook Konstantin, snatched the girl, and flung her facedown on the horse’s sweating shoulder.
“Masha!” Vasya shouted. Solovey had already spun to chase them down. Great arcs of slush flew from his galloping feet. Vasya crouched on his neck, forgetting the arrows. But horse and rider had the whole width of the dooryard to cross, and Kasyan gained the terem-steps unmolested. He slid down the horse’s shoulder, with Marya held, kicking, under one arm. His glance rose and met Vasya’s. “Now,” Kasyan called to her, teeth bared, eyes glittering with the rising flames, “you may regret your pride.”
He hurried up with Marya into the darkness. “You promised!” Konstantin cried after him, arriving, stumbling, at the foot of the stairs and hesitating before the dark tunnel of the staircase. “You said—”
A ripple of wild laughter answered him, then silence. Konstantin stood gaping up into the dark.
Solovey and Vasya reached the other side of the yard. Konstantin spun to face them. Solovey reared, his hooves a breath from the priest’s head, and Konstantin toppled backward. Vasya leaned forward, her glance as cold as her voice. Behind them came the battering on the gate; above them, the ringing of swords. “What have you done? What does he want with my niece?”
“He promised me vengeance,” Konstantin whispered. He was shivering all over. “He said I had but to—”
“In the name of God!” cried Vasya. She slid down Solovey’s shoulder. “Vengeance for what? I once saved your life. While you were still a man, unbroken, I saved your life. Have you forgotten? What does he want with her?”
For a flicker, she saw the painter, the priest, somewhere beneath the layers of bitterness. “He said that if I were to have you, then he must have her,” Konstantin whispered. “He said I could—” His voice grew shriller. “I didn’t want to! But you left me! You left me alone, seeing devils. What was I to do? Come now. You are here now, and I ask only—”
“You have been tricked, again,” interrupted Vasya coldly. “Get out of my sight. You baptized my sister’s child; for her sake I will not kill you.”
“Vasya,” said Konstantin. He made to reach out; Solovey snapped yellow teeth and his hand dropped. “I did it for you. Because of you. I—I hate you. You—are beautiful.” He said this like a curse. “If you had only listened—”
“You have only been the tool of wickeder things,” she returned. “But I have had enough of it. Next time I see you, Konstantin Nikonovich, I am going to kill you.”
He drew himself up. Perhaps he meant to speak again. But she had no more time. She hissed a word to Solovey; the stallion reared, swift as a snake. Konstantin stumbled back, mouth open, dodging the stallion’s hooves, and then he fled. Vasya heard him weep as he ran.
But she did not watch him go. The dark stairs above seemed to breathe horrors, though the rest of the dooryard was alight from the burning stable. She gathered herself to hurry upward alone. “Solovey,” she said, looking behind her, a foot on the first step. “You must—”
But then she paused, for the sound of battle above a
nd behind her had changed. Vasya turned to look again at the dooryard. The flames in the stable leaped higher than trees now, burning a strange, dull scarlet.
Dark things with slavering mouths began creeping out of the reddened shadows.
Vasya’s blood turned cold. Dmitrii’s men in the dooryard stumbled. Here and there a sword fell from a nerveless hand. A man above screamed.
“Solovey,” Vasya whispered. “What—?”
Then, with a final, rending crack, the gate gave. Chelubey came galloping into the red light calling orders, competent, fearless. He had archers to his left and right, and they filled the dooryard with arrows.
Dmitrii’s men, already wavering, broke. Now Vasya had an impression of loss and horror and chaos; horses fleeing blind, arrows flying over the wall-top, and all around pallid, grinning things that came stumbling out of the bloody dark, hands reaching, smiles pasted on faces sloppy with rot. Behind them came warriors, steadily advancing, with quick horses and bright swords.
Was this sorcery? Could Kasyan call fiends from Hell and make them answer? What was he doing with Marya up there in the tower? The flames from the stable seemed drenched in blood, and more and more creatures crept from the shadows, driving her people onto the blades of their attackers.
An arrow whistled past her head and thudded into the post beside her. Vasya jerked in startled reflex. One of the horrors stretched out a clawing hand toward her, grinning, its eyes blind. Solovey lashed out with his forefeet, and the thing fell back.
Chelubey’s deep voice called again. The rain of arrows grew fiercer. Dmitrii’s men could not rally against this new threat; they were fighting ghosts. In a moment the Russians would be cut down, one by one.
Then Sasha’s voice rang out, clearly, calmly. “People of God,” he said, “do not be afraid.”
SASHA HAD LEFT HIS SISTER at the postern-gate and gone running up the stairs into the melee of the palace, following the Grand Prince’s voice, the screams and the crashing. Below him, dogs barked and horses squealed. The palace’s front gate was taking a steady battering; Kasyan’s men and Chelubey’s Tatars howled to rouse the dead. The attackers’ chance for secrecy was gone; now their only hope lay in swiftness and in sowing chaos and fear. How many men had crept in through the postern-gate before Vasya gave the alarm?
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