by K L Conger
Inga gasped. Yehvah and her no-nonsense air? She thought anyone who contemplated suicide foolish and in need of some good hard work to bring them back to their senses. To find out she'd once considered it herself shocked Inga.
"One day, I decided to do it. What did I have here? I went into the city to assist in a birth and stayed all day and part of the night. I needed to get back to the palace that night, though, because I had breakfast duties in the morning. I took my leave close to midnight, and walked alone through the dark, winter streets. As I passed a certain alley, I heard a ruckus. My curiosity took over and I peeked in. I found a small child, in a ring of blood, being kicked to death by the tavern-owner.”
Inga’s head came up, shock quaking her heart. The night Yehvah found her? She hadn’t thought of it in years. “Me?”
“Yes. You. I found a reason to live. Something to hold onto. Inga, you saved me in ways I couldn’t possibly convey to you. The deepest, darkest recesses of a person’s soul can only be revealed to God, but the battles I fought with myself during those days were bigger than me. Bigger than this," she glanced around the room. "Bigger than life." She sighed. "You were so ill when you arrived, I feared you would die. If you had, I would have laid down and died beside you, and let Nikolai shoulder the guilt for the choices he made. But you lived. So have I. Please, don’t abandon me now.”
Inga leaned forward until her head touched Yehvah’s. She’d never felt closer to Yehvah, more like her daughter, than she did at this moment. “I won’t. I promise.”
Chapter 32
AS MIDNIGHT DREW CLOSE, Inga slipped silently through the sheets of falling snowflakes on the back of a white horse. The mare belonged to a boyar, and was far too fine for her to ride on any other occasion. Nikolai chose it because its stark whiteness blended easily with the falling snow. He’d also given Inga a white cloak, large enough to cover the horse’s saddle. No one looking out over the palace ground would see her. Even if anyone caught movement, they'd assume it to be nothing more than frozen, swirling moisture.
Taras told Nikolai he would head due north from the palace. Nearly three miles away stood a circle of trees. Taras took Inga there last summer. They snuck out late at night, after she'd finished her work, and disappeared into the warm, summer forest. They found the stand of trees and spent the night in it. In the morning, they watched the sun rise and rushed back so Inga could get to the kitchens before Yehvah felt her absence. Taras told Nikolai to have Inga meet him there.
So she rode, hoping she the mare still walked in the right direction and wouldn’t veer off course in the disorienting snowfall.
When the snow level crested where the mare’s legs met its body, the delicately shod animal refused to move forward anymore. Inga dismounted and pulled the horse forward by its bridle. Chest-deep snow made walking difficult, but Inga knew she drew close. “Come on girl,” she murmured, afraid to disturb the heavy silence of the drifts. “A little farther.”
Yehvah took her to Nikolai, who’d explained everything about Taras’s mother and the Tarasovs. Inga wanted to cry. She might have if the cold hadn't prevented her. Her body clung to what heat it could, preventing hot tears from falling.
The flakes made no sound as they hit the drifts. Only the swish of Inga’s skirts against the powder broke the quiet, and the occasional whickering objection of the horse. Even the wolves stayed silent tonight.
The snow soaked through her clothes, making her shiver. Something warm closed over her hand on the horse’s bridle. She gasped, jumping back as the hand gently covered hers. Taras stood there, holding a torch. The snow fell so thickly, she hadn’t seen the light coming toward her from the right.
“Hold this.” She took the torch from him. Her fingers felt so numb, she didn't register the wood pressing against them. Taras situated himself between her and the horse. With one hand, he took hold of the mare’s bridle. The other went around her waist. He led the horse and pulled Inga through the snow simultaneously. She held the torch out in front to light their way.
Inga didn’t see the stand of trees until it loomed directly in front of her, an ominous shadow. The trunks of dozens of trees grew together for several feet off the ground. Only then did they branch out from one another, creating v-shapes that could be climbed over. A twelve-foot, vaguely circular space lay within, enclosed by the thick trunks. Together with the falling snow, it was the perfect place to hide from prying eyes.
Taras found a relatively sheltered patch of ground outside the stand of trees and tied the horse under an overhanging branch. The mare seemed content not to be pushing through snowdrifts anymore. Taras took the pack Nikolai had sent from the saddle, then helped Inga into the circle of trees.
He'd lit a fire. A few inches outside the flames, the snow had melted, creating a miniature moat, which gave way gradually to the drifts.
Inga turned and threw her arms around Taras. He embraced her and they clung to one another for several minutes.
“Are you all right?” She pulled back. “Nikolai told me. About your mother.”
He nodded.
She’d expected him to be upset, hysterical even.
He looked utterly tranquil. “I feel...empty.” He sighed. “But I’m all right. It’s done, now.”
Inga stared at him, then dropped her eyes, afraid to begin the conversation.
“Inga.” He raised her chin with his finger. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She tried to smile, but the warmth of the fire un-froze her tears. “How much I’m going to miss you.”
“You don’t have to miss me, Inga. Come with me. Let me take you from this place.”
She shook her head before he finished. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“I don’t know that. You can, Inga.”
“No. Yehvah needs me.”
“She’ll manage.” As they spoke, she backed away from him. He stepped forward, closing the distance.
“I don’t know what’s out there, Taras. I’ve never lived anywhere except here. My entire life...this has been my entire life.”
“We’ll find a new one together.” Taras’s voice sounded more frantic with each rebuttal. “Inga,” he stood in front of her and cupped her cheek in his palm, “I’ll take care of you.”
His voice sounded soft, his touch warm, and she wanted so much to do as he asked. So she didn’t have to see the hurt in his eyes.
“We’ll melt away into the night. We’ll start a new life together. We’ll get married on the way...”
She shied from his touch. Despite Yehvah’s pleas, Taras’s eyes acted like a rope around her middle, tugging her away from her old life. The thought of leaving terrified her beyond words. How could she abandon the only life—the only friends and family—she’d ever known?
“Inga,” desperation and fear wared on his face. When he spoke again, his voice broke. “Please come with me. I don’t want to be without you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, letting the tears flow. Most of them didn’t make it to her jaw, freezing half way down her face instead. “I can’t.”
Taras shut his eyes, pain furrowing his brow. He opened them and stepped toward her, raising his hands up as if approaching a skittish animal.
“What if we take small steps? Let’s get you up on the horse.”
“No! Taras, there’s no time for small steps. Aleksey Tarasov’s body has been discovered. People know you did it. Dark had already fallen when the accusations were made. Come first light, you'll have a band of Oprichniki on your trail. You must be long gone by then.”
“Inga, what is it that frightens you so? Can you tell me?”
"I...." She couldn’t. She had only emotions, sensations, memories. She didn't know how to put them into words. The cold of winter. The dark of night. Natalya’s death. Sergei’s violence. The deaths of beloved rulers. Two children hiding in a closet. Snowballs with rocks in them. The tavern owner’s boots, stabbing into her ribs. Yehvah. The little tsar will remember the girl with the g
olden mane...
“Taras, I was born in a ring of blood. I’ve been within it my entire life. I can’t break out of it.”
“Inga,” frustration tinged his voice. “We’re all born in a ring of blood. It’s what makes us human. You think it’s been around you your entire life—”
“It has.”
He shook his head. "You're wrong. It’s only your own superstition. You can break out of it. Only you can break yourself out.
She sobbed. “I don’t know how.”
“I’ll help you. Inga,” his face set in determination, “I won’t go without you.”
Something about the way he said it made her afraid. She wondered if he would force her. For a glimmer of an instant, some part of her hoped he would. Then the fear flooded in again, and she wanted to back away. Her back bumped against the ring of trees.
“I am only a servant. If you wish to force me, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Taras stared at her for a long time, face unreadable.
She had the strange feeling it was the worst possible thing she could have said, but didn't understand why. She never had.
Taras turned away from her. Running his hands through his hair, he stalked slowly back to the fire. Once there, he turned abruptly.
“Inga, how many times do I have to tell you...you make your own decisions...how else can I prove that I would never...” Something seemed to dawn on him. He shut his eyes, his face contorted in pain once more. Tears flooded his cheeks as he ran his upper lip through his lower teeth. He nodded, as though affirming some unspoken thought. “I have to let you make your own decision now.” He opened his eyes and she knew the way his face looked would stay with her for the rest of her life. “I don’t want to leave you here. Know that.” He turned away from her, toward the fire. When he spoke again, his voice came so low, she stepped closer to hear it. “I never thought I would leave the woman I loved behind. But I’ve no doubt that, when the time is right, she will come and find me. And we will be together again. Come.”
He strode toward her. Taking her elbow, he helped her out of the stand of trees. She went willingly, all the fight gone out of her. The snowfall had stopped while they’d spoken, the storm moving south. To the north, the sky cleared entirely. Come morning, the air itself would freeze.
Taras led her out twenty feet from the stand of trees. He put his face close to hers and pointed north.
“Do you see those two peaks in the distance?”
She peered into the darkness, but Siberia was full of mountains. “Which ones?”
“They’re hard to see. They don’t look like they have any snow on them.”
Inga peered harder. Far in the distance, so far their points barely crested the horizon at all, waited two small peaks. The moon's light didn’t touch them. They appeared only slightly lighter than the black sky.
“What about them?”
“Remember when I told you about the valley my family owned?"
She remembered. Anechka, he'd called it. Grace of God.
"It’s located a good distance in front of those two peaks, but it’s on a straight line with them. Inga, that’s where I’m going.” He turned to her, resting his hands on her shoulders as he'd done a thousand times since coming to Russia. His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s where I’ll be. I don’t know why you can’t leave this place, what binds you so strongly, or if you’ll ever escape it. If you do, travel toward those two peaks. Keep them in sight and head toward their center point. You’ll find Anechka. You’ll find me.”
“Why, Taras? Why into Siberia? There’s nothing out there. Wild animals and uncivilized land.” He stared at her until she dropped her gaze, realizing she had no right to lecture him or offer advice after refusing him. The thought of him living alone and isolated in the frozen wasteland of Siberia made her chest hurt. Seconds passed and she wished he would break the silence. Her head hurt from what loomed, unspoken, between them.
“I have nowhere else to go.” Inga raised her eyes. Fresh tears bubbled over his lower eyelids.
“Surely in England—”
He shook his head. “I left my life there behind. If I went back, I'd be a pauper.”
“At least you would be among people, live amongst civilization rather than the wilds of Siberia.”
He turned away from her, walking a few steps. “Maybe I don’t want civilization, Inga. Maybe I need the solitude more.”
“But why?”
“Because I don’t respect civilization enough anymore. I respected Russia when I came here.” He turned to her, throwing his arm out to underline his point. “I respected Ivan as a ruler and a leader, showed loyalty to his causes. I've watched that civilization, that ruler, all of it, slide into the abyss.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I cannot stay in a place like this. Sergei—Sergei of all people—has power. He’s not diabolical or intelligent. He’s brutishly savage. A bloodthirsty animal. And he’s one of the most powerful men in Russia. How can I live in a place where such a thing is possible? I must be freer than that. I must! My soul can’t take it. If I continue to live like this, I’ll go mad. Even England has its tyrants.” He turned away again, looking out across the luminescent snow. “I yearn...for peace,” he whispered. “For an end to this violence.”
“But—” She took a tentative step toward him. “Even if you can’t stay here—you can’t, if you want to live—why not go somewhere else? I can’t bear the thought of your solitude.”
He shook his head, refusing to look at her.
“Taras, is your soul so devastated, so embittered, that you will forsake society all together?”
He remained silent a long time before answering. When he spoke, his voice was firm and calm, but loud enough to hear clearly. “My soul is full of the flames of Moscow. It’s full of the blood of Novgorod and the soiled waters of the Volga.” He turned to her then, cocking his head slightly to the side. A note of pleading entered his voice. “It’s full of you, Inga. I have no room left for society and its ‘civilized’ ways. I go to Siberia to await whatever fate God has appointed for me. With no bitterness. No regrets.”
He stalked across the snow to stand directly in front of her. Without a word, he held out his hand. “Inga, please?”
She considered his hand, his eyes. She understood what he asked. Pulling her wrists into her chest and twining them together, she squeezed her eyes shut and let out her breath. Her entire body trembled. After a moment, she opened her eyes. He still stood there, hand stretched out toward her.
His eyes leaked tears. His hand dropped.
Her own tears gushed anew. The white of the unbroken snow reflected in his eyes, turning them a brilliant shade of blue. Crossing the remaining distance between them, he bent and kissed her, pulling her in close. His hands pushed into her hair and knocked the covering off, his hot breath falling on her neck. She didn’t know whether his knees gave out, or if it was a symbolic gesture, but he went to his knees in the snow, holding her, squeezing her against his chest. The tears on their cheeks mingled and he held her face against his, pressing his forehead into hers. Eyes shut, they stayed that way for what felt like hours. Hours, and half-seconds. An eternity in an instant.
Inga would have happily spent eternity in Taras's embrace. She envisioned the hunting party finding them in the morning, statues frozen on the raw arctic crossroads between civilization and Siberia.
“You have to go, Taras. You have to be far away before dawn.”
He let go of her, nodding. They stared at one another for several seconds before getting to their feet. He put an arm around her and guided her to where he'd hobbled the white mare. She lingered in the crook of his arm a moment before turning toward the horse. She didn’t think she could bear to look into his face again. Putting her hands on the side of the saddle, she tried to control her trembling.
“I’ll make sure you’re safe, Inga. Don't be afraid.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, not turning from the saddle.
His reply came softly. “Nothing.”
The moon shone behind them now, throwing their shadows out in front of them. Taras's shadow stood behind hers, head hanging down so his face hovered above her neck. One shadow arm lifted, his shadow hand hovering above her shadow shoulder. She waited for the weight of his hand to settle against her dress. It didn’t come. After several seconds, the hand dropped, not touching her.
The pain of the almost-touch blazed so intensely, Inga couldn’t breathe. Strange to yearn for it so much when he’d kissed her only moments before. The shadow behind her hung its head, reflecting her emotion. She wondered if Taras still wept, but couldn't tell. She didn’t think teardrops cast shadows.
With a sob, she swung into the saddle. Taras helped her. She gazed down at him standing there, hand resting on her knee. His eyes looked dry, but lonely. “Won’t you change your mind?” Despite the pleading in his voice, no hope remained in his eyes.
She shut hers, the pain so acute her hand strayed to her chest, as though it could bridle the pain. “I want to...but I can’t.”
He nodded. Resignation and acceptance painted his face, but something else too. Somehow, she thought he understood, and didn’t judge her for it. “You’d better get back to the palace before you or the horse freeze.” He took the mare by the bridle and turned it in the right direction, then hit it on the rump to get it moving.
“Dosvidaniya,” she whispered.
“Goodbye, Inga.”
Staring into the dark gulf that lay in front of her, the most profound sense of loneliness Inga had ever felt consumed her. She twisted around in her saddle. He stood there, knee deep in the snow, framed by the terrestrial light of the moon, growing smaller with each step. She wished she could say or do something—wave, call out, run to him, anything—but she stayed on the horse, watching his profile shrink against the far, savage mountains.
When she returned to the palace, she didn’t go to his room. Couldn't face it's emptiness. After shutting the door to the servants' quarters, she fell against it, sobbing.