by Sarah Ash
“Silly girl, it’s just the vanguard,” Ilsi said. “There can’t be more than twenty riders. Look, Ninusha, there’s Michailo! Michailo! What’s the news from Smarna?”
Kiukiu, standing on tiptoe behind the two maids, saw the young man leap down from his mount and wave.
“Lord Gavril will be here within the hour. Tell Sosia.”
“You look well, Michailo,” Ilsi said, simpering.
“I’m famished!” cried Michailo, laughing. “Tell Sosia we’re all famished.”
“You hear that, Sosia?” Ilsi said. “Within the hour!”
“Ilsi, put this dish of carp in the bakeoven. Watch it like a hawk and don’t let it burn. Ninusha, finish this pie off for me. And Kiukiu—you’d better take this bowl up to my lady’s rooms now before her bell starts jangling again,” Sosia said, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Me?” Kiukiu said, horrified.
“Give it to Dysis. My lady need never know who brought it.”
“Make sure you don’t spill it, Kiukiu,” mocked Ilsi.
Flustered, Kiukiu took up the tray and set out toward the lady Lilias’ rooms. The dark-paneled corridors and echoing hallways of the kastel, which had been empty and silent for weeks, were now filled with men. Warriors tramped up and down the polished stairs, the air echoing to their shouts and the clatter of their boots. Only the most trusted members of the druzhina were allowed in the Drakhaon’s wing of the kastel. Volkh had personally selected those who stood guard. But since the Drakhaon’s—Kiukiu shuddered, hardly allowing herself to even think the word—since his death, the old guards were gone. Put to the question first by Bogatyr Kostya, then brutally executed. No mercy shown.
If any of them had been part of a conspiracy, none had revealed it. They had gone to their deaths tight-lipped, silent—except to declare on the scaffold that they deserved death for not protecting their lord in his hour of need. His murder dishonored them. And what was one of the druzhina without his honor?
So she hurried past the warriors, eyes cast down, careful not to trip and spill Lilias’ sweet rice sutlage. The honeyed scent of the beeswax polish she had rubbed into the paneled walls was overlaid by the musky animal smell of men. The invasion was at once alarming and exhilarating. Yet she knew no one would notice her; she was only dumpy, frumpy Kiukiu, after all, not dark, languorous Ninusha or fickle Ilsi—or Dysis with her charming Mirom accent and refined manners.
Long before she reached Lilias’ room she could hear the petulant tinkling of Lilias’ silver bell. The Drakhaon had given his mistress fine rooms on the first floor of the kastel, overlooking the neglected kastel gardens with a view to the distant mountains beyond.
She reached the door to Lilias’ anteroom.
Please let Dysis open, she prayed as she tapped at the door.
From behind the heavy door she thought she caught the sound of a woman’s voice raised, harsh and shrill, ranting.
She tapped again, a little louder this time.
Within came the sudden sound of smashing crockery.
Kiukiu stepped back from the door. Perhaps she should go away. . . .
The door opened a crack. To Kiukiu’s relief, Dysis’ face appeared. But the maid’s face was flushed. Her little lace coif, usually perched neatly on her immaculately arranged hair, was awry, stray wisps of brown hair escaping from the lace.
“Sutlage for my lady,” gabbled Kiukiu, thrusting the tray forward. “Without cinnamon.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Dysis said, her voice a little breathless. “The new Lord Drakhaon is here.”
“Within the hour. So Michailo says.”
Dysis’ pretty mouth briefly twisted into a grimace. She took the tray from Kiukiu and closed the door before Kiukiu could say any more.
As Kiukiu turned to go back to the kitchens, she heard a muffled shriek—and then another crash, sharp with the shards of shattering porcelain.
Kiukiu winced as she crept away. All that sweet, rich pudding wasted, reduced to a splatter of slimy, sticky mess to be painstakingly wiped away by poor Dysis.
Poor Dysis? She stopped, wondering at herself. She had never pitied Dysis before. She had always envied Dysis her elegant Muscobar ways, her pretty looks, her efficiency and neatness. What did it matter that her mistress Lilias happened to be difficult to please? Surely the rewards of service to the Drakhaon’s mistress outweighed the discomforts. The discarded clothes alone must make it worthwhile, the silk gloves, the lace petticoats, the gowns worn once or twice then tossed aside! Kiukiu looked sadly at her patched, stained gown, a hand-me-down from Sosia, which had faded from brown to an indeterminate shade of gray with many scrubbings. She had another gown, more discreetly patched, kept for “best.” It had once been blue, a clear sky blue like flax flowers. . . .
“Kiukiu! What’re you dawdling up here for?” Sosia was standing in the hallway below, glaring up at her. “Get back to the kitchens and baste the roasting fowl. Lord Gavril won’t want to eat a plateful of dry leather!”
“I’ve had tables set in the paneled dining room.” Sosia’s voice was becoming cracked and hoarse with issuing orders. “Kiukiu—go and make sure Oleg’s drawn ten flagons of barley beer, as I told him. Make sure he’s not still in the cellar, sampling the new keg. Tell him to get upstairs and brush off the cobwebs.”
Kiukiu sighed and opened the door to the cellar, only to hear Sosia saying, “To wait at table—Ninusha and Ilsi.”
Ninusha and Ilsi. Not Kiukiu.
“Sosia, can’t I help?” she said plaintively.
Sosia gave a sigh. “What are you still doing here? Go get Oleg. And no, you can’t wait at table, Kiukiu, and you know why.”
Because I’m too clumsy, Kiukiu thought angrily, fumbling her way down the dank cellar steps by the greasy rope rail.
At the bottom of the stone stairs hung a lantern, faintly illumining the clammy air, which was stale with the smell of old ale.
“Oleg?” Kiukiu called into the darkness, a little uncertainly. Dusty webs clung to the stones. There were great-granny spiders down here as big as her fist; she had seen them.
Around the corner of the archway, she came upon the massive barrels of oak: beer on one side, the smaller barrels of rich, red wine imported from the sun-baked vineyards of Smarna on the other.
Oleg, the Drakhaon’s butler, stood with his back to her, surreptitiously sampling the beer from the farthest barrel. Obviously he had not heard her—or Sosia.
“Oleg!” Kiukiu said again.
He started, turning around with a telltale froth of beer foam whitening his gray moustache.
“Kiukiu,” he said, grinning leeringly at her. “You won’t tell Sosia, will you?”
“She wants the flagons in the lower hall. Ten.”
“She’s a slave driver, that woman. Ten flagons! Come here and give your old Uncle Oleg a hand, Kiukiu, there’s a good girl.”
Kiukiu came forward reluctantly. Being alone with Oleg in the cellar where no one else could hear made her feel very uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be pawed by the lecherous old man. Besides, he was not her uncle. He was no relation to her at all.
“You lift that flagon for me, girl, my back’s playing me up. . . .”
A gust of his beery breath, stale as the cellar air, made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. She bent to pick up the brimming flagon and felt his hands on her buttocks. She took in a deep breath, then stepped backward, stamping down her heel on his foot, hard. Beer slopped onto the floor.
“Ouch! What’d you want to do that for?”
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, retreating. “Don’t ever touch me again!”
“I was only brushing off a spider. A big one—”
“Tell that to Sosia.”
“There’s another nine flagons here—”
“You’ll just have to carry them yourself.”
She reached the stairs and, hitching up her skirts with one hand, began to climb up, staggering under the weight of the heavy flagon.
“Hard-hearted whore.” Oleg was muttering to himself, loud enough so that she could hear. “Just like her mother. Cold as you please to honest men.” He had reached the bottom of the stair and was teetering drunkenly upward behind her. “Yet slut enough to open her legs to any passing Arkhel clansman.”
“What did you say?” Kiukiu turned slowly around, gazing down at Oleg.
“You heard me.” His face was twisted now with a vindictive snarl. “Your mother Afimia. Arkhel’s whore.”
“She was raped!” Kiukiu shrieked. “She didn’t have any choice!”
Suddenly the day’s accrued insults were too much to endure. She swung the flagon—and emptied it over Oleg’s head. For a moment he stood, mouth open, drenched in the flood of beer. Then as his bellow of outrage echoed around the cellar, she turned and fled, sobbing, toward the kitchen, tearing past Ninusha and Ilsi, toward the back door into the stable yard—and the night.
Kiukiu crouched in the darkest corner of the stables, her apron clutched to her mouth to try to stifle the choking sobs that shook her whole body.
She was sick of her life at Kastel Drakhaon. She was sick of being the butt of Ninusha and Ilsi’s spiteful jokes, of being fumbled by lewd old men like Oleg, of Sosia’s shrill nagging. There was not a single soul in the whole kastel who cared for her, to whom she could go and pour out her heart. She was just a nuisance to them, a thing to be used and abused.
All her life she had been told how grateful she should be to Sosia for taking care of her when Afimia died, how a life of servitude was the best a poor bastard child, misbegotten spawn of the enemy clan, could ever dare to hope for.
Well, she had dared to hope. There had to be more to life than the drudgery of the kitchen and scullery. And she would run away to find it. She wouldn’t stay to be maltreated any longer.
The cold night was suddenly splashed bright with torchflames; Kiukiu heard the kastel gates grind open and the iron clatter of hooves on the cobblestones. She knuckled the tears from her eyes, feeling a gust of frosty night air stinging her wet cheeks.
Run away without catching even one glimpse of Lord Gavril?
She crept to the stable entrance, peeping out into the night. Even though her thoughts were in turmoil, she forgot her unhappiness as she searched among the dismounting warriors for the boy from the portrait. Shadows and torchlight twisted and flickered in the darkness, men shouted to each other—and for a moment, she was certain she had missed him, certain he must have gone ahead into the kastel.
And then she saw him.
He stood gazing about him, the one still figure amid the moving warriors and the tossing horses’ heads, watching, assessing, his face betraying no emotion. By Saint Sergius, Kiukiu whispered in her heart, he is every bit as handsome as I thought he would be. Those eyes, can they really burn so blue? Was Lord Volkh ever so good-looking? It must be his mother’s warm Smarnan blood. His skin seems to glow gold in the torchlight, the gold that comes from the warm kiss of the summer’s sun, not the harsh burning of the winter’s wind or the cruel dazzle of the high snowfields. . . .
At his side stood Bogatyr Kostya, stiffly protective, gesturing for him to ascend the wide stone stairs that led up to the front door. In the dark, Kiukiu thought, Lord Gavril would not see that the stairs were cracked with frost, the gray stone mottled with lichen and stained with weather.
What must he be thinking? she wondered as the druzhina drew their sabers in salute as Lord Gavril slowly climbed the steps. He was so young when he was taken away from Azhkendir. Does he remember anything of this place? Does he remember anything of his father? Then she shuddered. What had Kostya told Lord Gavril of the Drakhaon, his father? Could he have any idea?
And then, as the heavy front doors to the kastel closed behind Lord Gavril and the druzhina came tramping into the stables to rub down their horses, Kiukiu slipped silently into the courtyard.
The night air was damp with frost. Frost was already glistening on the damp cobblestones. Kiukiu shivered, clasping her arms tight to herself.
Winter was coming. If she ran away tonight, she would freeze to death in a ditch. No, better to endure Sosia’s anger one more night. And she would endure it willingly if only to snatch another glimpse of Lord Gavril.
CHAPTER 5
Dish after unfamiliar dish was presented to Gavril: a hot, red soup in which great daubs of soured cream floated; cold jellied carp; salmon baked in papery pastry with bitter, aromatic leaves and rice. . . .
But he was too weary to take more than a mouthful of each course, slowly, mechanically chewing, hardly tasting the food, longing to escape the intense scrutiny of his father’s household. All he really wanted was a hot bath.
“Lord Gavril is tired after the long journey,” Kostya said. “My lord, let me escort you to your bed.”
No hope of escape, even now. Kostya had not let him out of his sight once since they arrived.
As they reached the head of the stairs, Gavril saw two of the druzhina had taken up positions outside a dark carved door at the end of the landing. And as they saw him, they struck their chests with their fists in salute and flung open the door for him.
“So I’m still your prisoner,” he said, his voice dry with bitterness.
“It is for your own safety, my lord,” said Kostya. “We have lost one Drakhaon through our own negligence. We must not lose another.”
As Gavril entered the room, he heard the door close behind him and a key turn in the lock.
No hope of a bath tonight. He would have to sleep as he was, dirty, stinking of travel. He sank onto the bed and started to tug off his riding boots. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as his feet emerged, the socks stiff with grime and sweat, almost glued to his feet.
He lay back on the bed, curtained by the somber brocades, dark as his own despair. Locked in, like a criminal in the cells.
“In my father’s bedchamber,” he said aloud, softly. The room betrayed little of its previous occupant. The tapestries, like all the others in the kastel, showed hunting scenes. The sheets smelled crisp and fresh, faintly perfumed with the leaves of dried summer herbs. A little fire crackled in the grate, warming the chill of the room. It could have been any wealthy landowner’s bedchamber for all that it told him of Lord Volkh Nagarian.
And then he caught, through heavy lids, the glint of firelight on a portrait on the wall.
Curiosity overcame tiredness. He forced himself from the comfort of the bed to inspect the picture—and found himself staring at his childhood self. Young Gavril. Ten or eleven years old. And the picture was so vividly painted that he knew it could only be his mother Elysia’s work.
Had she painted it because his father had requested it of her? Or had she painted it as a reminder, a poignant message to Lord Volkh saying, “Don’t forget you have a son who is fast growing up”?
All these years he had believed his father had taken no interest in him. He had even secretly wondered if his father had abandoned his mother because of him. Some men were like that, Elysia said, moving on to the next conquest when the demands of domesticity became too constricting.
Now he saw that his father had kept his picture here in his bedchamber, the first thing he saw when he awoke each morning, the last before he closed his eyes to sleep.
Tears suddenly pricked his eyes, stingingly hot.
“Father,” he whispered.
But if he had hoped to find some further connection with the father he could not remember, he had found none. There was nothing here but a void.
He must escape. As soon as it was light he would begin to make his plans, observing, watching for any weakness, no matter how small, in the defenses Kostya had set up “for his own safety.”
Gavril slowly undid the buttons on his jacket and shrugged it off, letting it lie on the floor where it fell. Then he snuffed out the oil lamp and crawled onto the bed. The flickering fireshadows gradually dimmed as the glowing coals crumbled to ash, and he slept.
The diamond-p
aned windows of the Drakhaon’s bedchamber looked out not over the inner courtyards of the kastel, but over swathes of moorland and brooding forest stretching far into the hazy distance where the horizon was crowned by jagged mountains, half-wreathed in swirling cloud. Beneath the fast-scudding cloud, Gavril caught a shimmer of fresh snow on the peaks.
He unhooked the catch. Opening one window, he felt the fresh air cold on his face, faintly tinged with the aromatic fragrance of oozing pine sap.
No way of escape here; there was a sheer drop of twenty feet or more to the yard below. Stories of prisoners knotting sheets together to improvise a way of escape came to mind. He might reach the ground, but at the entrance of the courtyard he could see guards patrolling the walls; he would never get past his own bodyguard.
There came a sharp rap at the door.
“Lord Gavril? Are you awake?” Bogatyr Kostya’s voice was powerful enough to carry across a parade ground. Gavril hastily closed the window.
A key turned in the lock and servants came in, bowing and murmuring greetings, one bearing a bowl of hot water, another a tray of food.
“Lord Volkh always took his first meal here,” Kostya said, “while we discussed the day’s arrangements.”
Gavril looked at the breakfast tray: a bowl of a thick porridge; a pewter mug filled with strong spiced ale; and a hunk of coarse bread with a slice of hard-rinded, pungent yellow cheese. Soldiers’ rations. He was used to croissants and a bowl of hot chocolate, with maybe a fresh apricot or two picked from the espaliered trees in the villa gardens. His stomach had still not recovered from the unfamiliar food last night. He turned away from the tray.
“I sent word to Azhgorod of your arrival last night,” said Kostya. “The lawyers are on their way here for the reading of your father’s will. As soon as you are ready, my lord, you must authorize the reopening of the Great Hall.”
The walls leading to the Great Hall were lined with hunting tapestries. Gavril saw scene after gory scene of blood and slaughter: the lolling heads of butchered stags, bears, and wolves filled each stitched canvas.