Yvgenie

by CJ Cherryh

  Pyetr said, desperately, ‘Let's not for the god's sake quarrel. You pack. I'll get after her. There's more than one horse, Sasha. His showed up.—’Veshka, do you have any clear idea where she's going?’

  ‘North. And you're not going after her alone. She has no idea what she's going to do. I have no idea. She's never fought us like this.’

  ‘Then she's damned scared, is all! Hell, ‘Veshka, maybe we should all just let her alone, let her think! If we all take off after her—’

  ‘With him, let her alone?''

  ‘Hush,’ Sasha said. ‘No. I agree with both of you. We shouldn't press her, but we shouldn't let her go off on her own either. There's too much come loose the last few days— more wishes than hers are involved here, and she doesn't know what she's going to do: she doesn't even realize what she can do—that's the worst danger. She could have killed you, Pyetr, with a less specific wish.’

  ‘Then she's smarter than that. She knows what she's doing, she's doing exactly what you predicted she'd do—what anybody would do, who's cornered… For the god's sake, it's Ilyana we're talking about—’

  ‘—in Kavi's company,'' Eveshka cried. ‘Is that what you want?’

  He looked at her in distress and she was sorry she had shouted at him, she was sorry for wanting him to listen to her opinions. She put her arms about him, wanted him well, wanted him to understand her fears, at least. ‘Love's no defense,’ she whispered. ‘God, protect yourself.’

  He said, his chin against her hair, ‘Love's not a defense; that's the entire point, isn't it?’

  He terrified her. He went at fear the way he went at fences, headlong. And if what he loved had no concern for him—

  ‘Ilyana's being selfish,’ she said, as reasonably as she could. ‘She's scared, yes. We're so easily frightened. Everything's so unstable to us. When your feet are sliding—it's very hard to love anyone but yourself.''

  ‘She's your daughter,’ he said. ‘And you do.’

  ‘Don't trust me, dammit!’ She pushed away from him, and realized Sasha's embarrassed presence. ‘God, you reason with him!’

  She ran for the door, ran down from the porch and across the yard.

  ‘'Veshka!’ she heard Pyetr shouting after her, afraid for her, angry at her, she did not want to know. She wished she had kissed him goodbye. She wanted to run back now and do that, which would only make leaving him harder, and lead to arguments. She wished instead to welcome him home, sometime yet to come, which was as close as she dared come to wishing for their lives and this house—

  But even that wish might have a darker side. Anything might. Everything might. Don't trust me, was the safest wish for them: don't love me, she had tried for years.

  ‘'Veshka!’ Pyetr shouted furiously, and maybe it was a wish that anchored him to the porch, maybe it was his own knowledge that his effort was foredoomed—but he had a sure notion which when he felt Sasha's hand fall on his shoulder. Sasha said, ‘Let's get packed. She's had a good start.’

  He shook the hand off, and was sorry he had done that. Sasha knew more than he did about what had happened, probably knew more than he did about Eveshka's intentions at the moment and Sasha had made no attempt to stop her. ‘What's she up to? What's she going to do when she finds them? Reason with them? Not damned likely!’

  Sasha said, ‘Come on. Let's get what we need in the house.’

  ‘She's the one we ought to chase down! Why aren't we stopping her? Is it your idea? Or mine? Or hers?’ He slammed his hand onto the rail. ‘God, I'm going crazy!’

  Sasha said, ‘I think it's because neither of us can keep her here. And she could be right. We don't know who wanted Ilyana to be born. It wasn't 'Veshka's idea.’

  Heat stung his face. Anger welled up. ‘Babies do happen without magic, Sasha, and once they're started, they do get born!’

  ‘Not to wizards.’

  No damned time or place to argue that point. He muttered,

  ‘To wizards the same as anyone else, unless they wish not,’ and started into the house to get his coat, his sword, provisions—

  ‘The point is,’ Sasha pursued him at the door, ‘she's surrounded herself with protections for her life and her way. It shouldn't have just happened—’

  ‘Protections against what?’ He turned around, stopping Sasha short in the doorway. ‘Against the fact we love each other? Is that safe, Sasha? Is that even sane? She loves the mouse!’

  Sasha said faintly, ‘She knew the hazards, too.’

  ‘The mouse isn't a damned hazard! She's the best thing that's ever happened to us!’

  ‘There were others who could have wanted it. That's the point, Pyetr. That's what she's scared of.’

  ‘All right, all right, let's say it, shall we? Her mother. Draga. Draga's influence is what she's afraid of. But Draga's dead!’

  He saw it coming, knew he had been the fool before Sasha even said the obvious: ‘So is Chernevog.’

  Babi had come with them, trotting along with a slight disturbance of dead leaves, upset and growling all the way.

  Which might tell you something, mouse, her uncle would say to her. She had wanted Babi to stay with her father to be sure he was safe until her mother got home (and afterward) but Babi had turned up by Patches' feet as she led Patches out the gate—and now at the edge of dusk Owl joined them, too, flying ahead of them through the dark, a gliding wisp of white with black barring.

  ‘What's that?’ Yvgenie asked anxiously.

  ‘Only Owl.’

  ‘He's not a real owl,’ Yvgenie objected, meaning, she supposed, that he was not a live owl. She said, distractedly, wishing silence close about them: ‘He's real. Ghosts are real.’ Yvgenie made her think of her father, so deaf to wishes, and so patient and good-hearted despite his weariness. She wanted to help him, but worrying about him or her father was dangerously distracting to her right now, and she longed for Kavi to speak to her again, but that was not fair. It was even dangerous to Yvgenie—

  She thought it and Yvgenie's head began to nod—perhaps that her wish had done it, perhaps that Yvgenie had grown too weak or too weary to care any longer about overhanging branches. ‘Stay on,’ she wished him, riding Patches close where there was room among the trees. She pushed at his shoulder. ‘Please don't fall off.’ She had had enough of bumps on undeserving heads for one day, please the god, when she dared not even wish her father well now, dared not reach back into the house where her mother's wishes hung so thick and so stiflingly strong.

  Wishes in that house had been directing their lives from generations before she was even born or her father or Sasha had ever come to live there. Magic in that house was all about her, attached to the china, the doors, stitched into the clothes she wore—magic there must always be more convolute than she knew, different than she could possibly understand. She could feel it tonight reaching even into the woods—and most of it was her mother's, she knew that now. All her life her mother had told her not to use magic, but her mother had been doing it all along, so subtly no one could catch her. Her mother had expected evil of her; her mother was afraid of anybody who wanted something in the least different than she did, that was the trouble with her mother: her mother wanted every living thing in the world to do what she wanted forever, to live all their lives as she wanted—that was how her mother's presence felt in the house, now that she had felt its absence.

  Her mother did not want to be known, uncle had admitted to her: her mother would never give her heart to a child, in any sense—because, for one thing, no one ever did anything good enough for her mother. No one could: her mother trusted no one. Her mother's magic would strangle her, snarl her in its tangled threads and smother her father and her uncle if they tried to protect her, unless she could find somewhere a place those wishes had never reached—

  Don't trust her, papa, don't listen to her, she's so scared, and so strong, and she wants, papa, she wants, stronger than I can deal with—stronger even than uncle can deal with—

  The mous
e could never hurt anyone. But her mother had always believed she would hurt her father—and now, dammit, mostly thanks to her mother, she had done that, in every sense. Beliefs, she meant to write in her book, can come true like wishes, when you put them on people.

  But her father and her uncle had refused to listen to a child. They had only worried about her mother's feelings, and her mother's hurt, and never, ever thought their fifteen-year-old daughter might understand a danger everybody older had failed to see.

  The mouse was running away now, because she could not stay the mouse anymore, not after her mother had wanted her father to kill an innocent boy only for being near her. A wish like that could come true years from now, and they would never, never know when, or how, even if her father might like Yvgenie and never want to harm him: he could still, within that wish, be responsible for an accident.

  She would find her Place, she would make a house of her own, the way her uncle had had his house on the hill (and still that had not proved safe). She had no idea whether her mother had had anything to do with that storm, but she had her suspicions and she meant to keep a further distance than her uncle had if it was only a lean-to in the woods. She would have this boy and Babi and Patches and the white mare, and once things were settled and she was sure her wishes were strong enough to protect them, then her father and her uncle could visit her house and say how well she was looking; and he would cook supper for them, yes, and ask how her mother was, and whether her mother was speaking to her yet—

  Her mother was loosing the cable that bound the boat to the dock. Above the steady creak of saddles and the jingle of bridle rings came the sinister lapping of water and the groan of old timbers—

  Ilyana, come out of the dark and the silence, Ilyana, you're wrong. Listen to me while you still can listen. You're making wrong choices. He's already led you to hurt your father.

  She didn't want to hear. No! She made her silence back again, but anger was a flaw, wondering about her father was—

  Your father trusted you, and now he can't believe you: that's the first thing you've done. You hurt him and you hurt your uncle, who could have been seriously hurt, young miss, and you're not thinking about anything right now but your own way. That's wrong. Look at what you're doing. Are you acting like the daughter we taught?

  ‘No!’ she screamed aloud to the dark, struggling to keep her wits about her, and not to hear the river or the reproach in her mother's voice. ‘You don't love anything! You don't care! You're the one that's selfish, mother, you're the one that's taking over everything and killing everything! I'd talk to you if I could, but I can't, I can't trust your promises! If I came back we'd fight, and that wouldn't be good, would it, mother, because somebody might stop you from having your own way, somebody might tell you how you've hurt my father and my uncle all my life! Papa can't laugh with you. But he can with me, mother! Stop wishing at him! Don't tell me who's hurting him!''

  ‘God,’ Yvgenie whispered, as the wind skirled round them and caught at the horses' manes and sifted leaves down through the branches. Patches sidestepped and Ilyana held her in: her mother called that wind and wanted the horses to take fright and leave them. Her mother wanted harm to Yvgenie; but she wanted not. Patches was hers, Yvgenie was hers, the white mare was his, and her mother could keep her distance.—Dammit, just let us alone! Give me time! Give me room, mother! If you ever want to hear from me again, give me room! Patches shivered under her. The smothering feeling went away, like a cloud passing the moon, and Owl glided close, making an entire turn about them.

  ‘Yvgenie, it's all right. It's all right. Don't worry.’

  ‘I'm not afraid,’ he said, and added, with a stammer, ‘except of wizards. And ghosts.—Can your mother really hear you like that?’

  ‘She can hear me,’ she said. ‘But she's not listening.’ She wished not to shed the tears she found in her eyes. ‘She never listens.’

  Yvgenie said, faintly, ‘Maybe we should go back and talk with your father. Even if he's not happy with me right now.''

  ‘No!’ She shook her head and wiped her eyes and lifted her chin. ‘Someone's needed to tell my mother no for a long time. Papa can't. Uncle can't. But I have. And by the god I will.’

  ‘I don't get a sense of where they are at all,’ Sasha said as Pyetr came down from the porch with the baggage. Eveshka was already down at the shore—well away by now, Pyetr was sure.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, handing up Sasha's baggage to him on Missy's back. ‘In the woods. That's where they are. Going north, with a long head start.—Where are the leshys? What's Misighi doing, for the god's sake? If she's holding a silence out there, haven't they noticed?’

  ‘Not that I can tell. But I did hear her—just a moment ago, and I don't think she intended that. I don't really get the idea we're unwelcome to follow her, either. It's a very odd feeling. A spooky kind of feeling, to tell the truth.’

  ‘It's her mother she doesn't want to meet,’ Pyetr muttered. He flung two of their heavier bags up onto Volkhi's back and tied them down tight. ‘I can't say I blame her, all things considered. Sasha, if you get another chance, tell her I’ll come ahead and talk to her, myself, alone, no magic, nothing of the sort—’

  ‘That wouldn't be wise to do.''

  ‘Wise, hell! She's my daughter, Sasha, not some outlaw!’

  ‘She's not alone, either.’

  ‘Fine, Chernevog's with her!’ He finished the ties. ‘I'm sure that gives me much more peace of mind!’

  ‘I'm not putting you in Chernevog's hands, not twice. We're only lucky he's on good behavior.’

  ‘Good behavior.’ He gathered up Volkhi's reins while Sasha was securing his own baggage to Missy's saddle. ‘It wasn't good behavior that brought him here in the first place, it wasn't good behavior that made trouble between my daughter and my wife, if you haven't reckoned that. It damned sure wasn't good behavior when he killed that boy!''

  ‘Or kept him alive. I'm less and less certain he has killed the boy, in the strictest interpretation of things.’

  ‘Interpretation? A handsome young boyaryevitch from Kiev just happens to fall in our brook in a rainstorm that happens to burn your house down? His horse just happens to find our front hedge the very hour my daughter runs off with Chernevog? So what do we call it? An uncommon spate of accidents?’

  ‘No. But wishes can ride right over a boy who happened to be in their way. Anyone's might have—even mine. Mine might still do him harm, I don't know. Maybe wishing us well, I've unintentionally wished this poor boy into the brook that night.’

  Dreadful thought. Paralyzing thought. A man couldn't move who thought such a thing. ‘Sasha, that's damned foolishness. You've never wanted anybody to die.’

  ‘Hush,’ Sasha said hoarsely. ‘Please, Pyetr.’

  ‘Well, hell, leave your thieving uncle Fedya out of it! Reasons count for something, don't they? And yours don't kill innocents. Let's not for the god's sake sit and wait till everyone's sure, shall we? Let's wish my daughter to use the sense she was born with, first! Let's wish she'd stop worrying about her mother and worry about herself—and talk sense into the young fool that's running away with her. Hell, wish her to talk sense into Chernevog, while we're about it!’

  ‘I've done that.’

  ‘And tell her I'm not upset about her dropping me on my head. It's far too hard to hurt. Make her understand that!’

  ‘I've tried.’

  '‘Veshka wouldn't hurt her or the boy. Not when it really comes down to it—I've proved that, more than once. Oh, hell, never mind explaining everything. Tell her stop and wait for me. Tell her I won't lay a hand on her or the boy.’

  A damned lot of baggage to slow them down—only reasonable, Pyetr told himself: wizards needed books and herbs, und Sasha had needed time to gather such things out of the cellar—all of which had put them further behind, while Eveshka took a lead on them, not mentioning Missy's slower pace giving the mouse that much more continual advantage over them.

 
Small blame he could pass to Sasha or 'Veshka for the mess. He had made the essential mistake: he had had his head bounced off the side of a substantial bedstead onto an uncompromising floor—not the first time in his life that had happened, the god knew, but certainly the most deserved. He had yelled at the mouse, he had scared his daughter like a fool, and the mouse had no more than protected herself. Absolutely it had been their mouse whose wish had dropped him on his head—he could think of no sane reason Kavi Chernevog would have delayed to put a pillow under his head mid a blanket over him, or waited while Ilyana did it, if he were in charge.

  Besides which the mouse was terribly upset at leaving him behind. A man associated with wizards learned to trust his most unreasonable convictions as wizardous in origin—

  In which light he knew the mouse had felt that crack on the head far worse than he had. It was entirely like a young wizard not to realize that a man wished asleep on his feet might fall onto the furniture—and, a former scapegrace him— he was even proud of the mouse for having the presence of mind afterward to take her book and her inkwell, to pack food and blankets, all very foresighted behavior for a youngster, never mind she had filched every last single sausage in the house, the pot of kitchen salt, and half the flour, but, by all they could figure, not a smidge of oil to mix it with. That was absolutely a youngster in charge. Then she must have caught Yvgenie Pavlovitch down by the stable fence, where he had found bits of severed rope and drops of blood in the dirt—appalling discovery, except that Chernevog directing matters would have taken all the horses—at very least opened the gate and run off Volkhi and Missy. The mouse had an unarguable naive honesty in her choices—and that gave them the chance they had.

  He led Volkhi out of the yard and let Missy and Sasha pass the gate—latched it, out of habit, though there was no Babi to mind the yard while they were gone. Babi was probably frightened, Babi had probably gone to that Place Babi went to—