by E. P. Clark
“No. I’ve done it before. If you do it right, it only hurts a little bit and it isn’t dangerous at all.” Well, other than the risk of blood poisoning, but I quickly shied away from that thought.
“Oh.” She thought about that as we left the stable and began walking through the wood behind it. Once the trees had closed in around us, and it became difficult to tell that we were in fact in the middle of the largest city in Zem’, she asked, “What is the oath again, mama? Not to eat flesh?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Well, sort of. It’s not to cause needless harm to any living thing, including any of our sisters and brothers of the land, air, and water. Which means we can’t eat their flesh either.”
“But what if a wolf attacks me, mama?”
“That would probably be considered needful harm.”
“Oh.” She thought for a few more strides, and then burst out, “But I like sausage, mama! And shashlyk!”
“You don’t have to take the oath,” I told her yet again.
“But you’re going to take it?”
“Yes.”
“And do you have to, mama?”
“No,” I said. “But someday I may, and so may you. And it…it won’t hurt us, and it might help. In Darya Krasnoslavovna’s day, animal spirits and other servants of the gods walked this wood in broad daylight, and watched over her and over Zem’. But now…I have never seen them, and neither has Sera. Perhaps this will help bring them back.”
“Oh.” She thought about that for some time, and then, just as we were approaching the prayer tree that I thought of as my own, said, with a firmness of voice one wouldn’t expect to hear in a girl of eight, “Then I’ll take it too, mama.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
She nodded, her jaw set in determination.
“You know that this means that even if you want sausage, or shashlyk, or anything else like that, you’ll have to turn away. Even if your friends, or people from back home, tell you to eat it, you’ll have to turn away. Do you think you can do that?”
She nodded again, her face very serious.
“Some people might not be very nice about it,” I warned her.
“Some people aren’t very nice about anything!” she exclaimed, and squared her thin little shoulders. “Besides, if I do this I’ll be better than them, won’t I?”
“Which is why they might not be very nice about it,” I said. “But—Mirochka, my dove, if…if things continue on as they are, then one day you will be Tsarina, and you will have to face many not very nice people.”
“I know, mama,” she said. “Like Princess Velikokrasnova?”
“Just like Princess Velikokrasnova,” I agreed. “So do you think you can do this?”
“I know I can do it, mama,” she said, and her voice was…her voice was the voice of a future Tsarina. I suddenly wondered what Sera’s heir, if she should have the very unlikely good fortune to be born, would be like. Would she be…would she be as fit for the rule of Zem’ as I suspected Mirochka was turning out to be? Would Zem’ be better off with Mirochka on the Wooden Throne than with any child of Sera’s? I needed to make myself stop thinking those thoughts. No good would come of them.
“And I’ll take the oath properly, mama,” said Mirochka, interrupting my semi-treasonous musings. “With blood.”
“Very well,” I said. We arrived at the prayer tree. My blood-soaked strip of sleeve fluttered merrily at me.
“What do we do now, mama?” whispered Mirochka.
“Here, let’s kneel down.” We knelt down side-by-side in front of the tree, and took out our ribbons—Mirochka’s faded one and my bright new one, that I had gotten for this summer in Krasnograd but never even worn. This seemed like a far better use for it anyway.
“When you make an oath, you don’t have to say anything out loud; you can just think the words if you want to,” I told her. “But for this one, let’s say them together.” I set down the bandages and vodka in front of us, and laid my knife on top of them.
“All right, mama,” said Mirochka, her voice shaking a little now that the knife was lying there directly in front of her, the blade glinting in the morning sun.
“I’ll say it first, and you can follow me,” I said. She nodded, her face tight with apprehension. I wondered if it was from fear of the cut, or if she sensed something solemn and significant in the way the ribbons fluttered in the tree, and then suddenly went still.
“I swear to uphold the oath of my foremother, Darya Krasnoslavovna, to the creatures of the forest and all the servants of the gods,” I said, and waited until Mirochka had repeated the words after me before continuing. “I swear never to bring harm to any living thing, not by eating their flesh, nor by hunting or capturing them for sport, nor by despoiling their land, their air, and their water. For we are of one kin.” I let Mirochka finish, and then I picked up the knife and said, “Let this blood serve as witness. We are of one kin. One blood. Sisters.” I turned to Mirochka and asked, “Do you want to go first? Or do you want me to go first?”
“You go first, mama,” she said, looking faint. I wondered where this squeamishness about drawing blood was from. Her father, no doubt.
“I’ll show you how, then,” I told her. Using my left hand, which made the business more awkward, I nicked the vein in the crook of my right arm. The blood immediately began to well up out of it, and I held my ribbon to it until it was thoroughly soaked, before dowsing the cut in vodka—which stung, but for Mirochka’s sake I refused to flinch—and wrapping it in a bandage.
“You see?” I said. “It’s very easy.” Just to set my mind at ease about the possibility of blood poisoning, I poured some vodka on the knife blade and washed away the small amount of blood that was on the tip.
“How much did it hurt, mama?” she asked in a small voice.
“It stings a little, but only a little,” I told her. “You’ve had many worse cuts. Do you want to do it, or shall I do it for you?”
“I…I can try, mama.”
“Good girl. But hold the knife in your right hand and cut your left arm; it will be easier for you.”
She took the knife from me and brought it close to the crook of her arm.
“Just use the tip,” I told her encouragingly. “You just need to make a tiny cut, and it’s easier to control that way.”
She had to make several tries before she could finally bring herself to cut the skin, but when she did, she didn’t cry out. I took the knife back from her and handed over her ribbon, which she pressed against the wound and watched, wide-eyed, as the blood ran into it. The cut she’d made was so tiny that the blood dried up long before the ribbon was soaked through, but I said that it was good enough, and helped her wash the wound with vodka—which did make her shriek—and bind it with a soft clean bandage, and then, as I always did when she was injured, I held my hands over the wound until it stopped hurting. Then we went and chose a branch for our ribbons and tied them up next to each other, which she did with fierce concentration.
“Is that it, mama?” she asked when we were done.
“That’s it,” I told her.
“Did I…did I do a good job, mama?”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight against me. “You did a wonderful job,” I told her. “You were so brave. Both making the oath, and drawing the blood—those were both such brave things to do.”
“Oh good,” she said, her face pressed against my stomach. “I try so hard to be brave, mama! But it’s so hard. I’ll never be as brave as you!”
“Sure you will,” I told her. “Braver, even.”
She lifted up her face to look at me. “Really, mama?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “One day you’ll be twice as brave as me. ‘Mirochka the Brave,’ that’s what they’ll call you.”
“I’ll try, mama,” she said, pressing her face back against me. “I try so hard, but I’m always afraid…why is it so hard to be brave, mama?”
“Because that’s what
being brave is,” I said. “Doing the things that are hard. Like you just did. Are you ready to go back now?”
She nodded, and we began to walk back towards the kremlin. “Do you think that’s what it’s like for them?” she asked suddenly.
“For whom?”
“For…for the animals that we kill. Do you think it hurts them like that knife hurt us? Do you think it’s as scary for them as it was for us? Is that what it’s like for them?”
“Sort of, but much worse,” I told her. “Much, much worse. I’ve seen it, and it’s…worse.”
“Oh. Then…” she asked, her voice rising with horror, “why do people do it?”
“Lots of people don’t even think about it, just like you never did until today. They don’t see it, so for them it’s as if it doesn’t happen. Even for me. I’ve kept the Empress’s oath on and off my whole life, and whenever I do keep to it, I feel glad, but…it’s so easy to turn away from it, to forget. People offer you food, or tell you have to eat something, and you do. Even I do, and I,” I grinned at her, “am not very easily persuaded. But it’s just…easier, and I guess I’m weaker and lazier than Darya Krasnoslavovna. But in any case, imagine how easy it is for other people, people who don’t have her blood in their veins, people who’ve never had to be and never will have to be the one who has to stand in front and lead the way, just to go along with whatever everyone else is doing.”
“But now you’ve taken the oath and sealed it with blood, haven’t you, mama? So there’s no going back.”
“There’s no going back,” I confirmed. “I feel good about it. Do you?”
She thought it about for a moment, then nodded. “Really good, mama. I know it’ll be hard, but,” she put on a brave face, “I’m ready! I know I’m ready! Oh look!” She pointed at something disappearing into the trees.
“What was it?”
“I think it was a hare, mama. I thought…I thought it was watching us. But it ran away so fast!”
“They do that,” I agreed. “You have to be…” very fast in order to shoot them, I almost said, but quickly revised that to “very fast in order to catch sight of them.”
“And shoot them, right, mama?”
“Yes…” I admitted reluctantly. “But we don’t have to worry about that any more.”
“No, but…” she looked down at the bandage on the crook of her arm, and the spot of blood that had come through it, “not everyone can forget about it. I mean, about the killing. Because someone has to do it, don’t they mama? And they can’t pretend it doesn’t happen.”
“The people who see it and do it every day get used to it,” I told her.
“How can they get used to it!?!”
“People can get used to the most horrible things.”
“Like what?”
“Well…” I knew I needed to answer her question, but I didn’t want to horrify her too much. “Like killing,” I told her. “Like killing innocent animals. For butchers and hunters and trappers, that’s their job and they’re dead to the death that they deal out. Or soldiers killing their fellow soldiers. Or headswomen, back when we had them. They get used to it, and they lose their horror of it, and then they’re like…a cripple. Someone who’s lost her arm. Who can still do many things, but that part of her that made her a whole person is gone.”
“Oh.” Mirochka walked for a little bit, thinking about this seriously, and then said, in a half-whisper, “Mama, the tutor said…and the boys said it was true…they said that when Miroslava Praskovyevna took Krasnograd, she, she killed lots of people, including…including little children. That she chopped off their heads with her own two hands.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“Do you think she was…missing part of herself? That she wasn’t a whole person after that?”
“I think she wasn’t a whole person before that,” I said. “That’s why she was able to do it. But afterwards…afterwards there must have been only a tiny piece of her left.”
“Then…then why did you name me after her, mama?” demanded Mirochka, aghast.
“Because it was time for our family to have another Miroslava.”
“I’m not going to chop off little children’s heads! I’m not going to chop off anyone’s head!”
“Good,” I told her. “Because if you did what Miroslava Praskovyevna did, there wouldn’t be very much left of you at all, my dove. But maybe there are other heads that need chopping. Not actual heads, but…bad things that we need to get rid of.”
“Oh. Like what, mama?”
“Like…bad things. Like people hurting those around them when they don’t need to.”
“Oh. And…mama?”
“Yes, my dove?”
“They say…” she swallowed and started again, “They say…they say that…that you…”
“Yes, my dove?” I repeated, not liking where this was going.
“That you killed someone. Two someones. Is it…it’s not true, is it? It can’t be!”
“It is,” I said.
She came to an abrupt halt and turned to face me, her body poised to run, but her mind unable to decide whether to run towards me or away from me. “Mama! Oh mama! Why! Oh mama! Is there…is there part of you missing, now?”
“Maybe,” I told her. “Probably. But it was worth it, my dove. You see, those people…they were bad people. They were hurting people. Little children. Hurting them so badly that they wanted to die, and sometimes they even killed themselves, even after they were free and had gone home. And they said…they threatened to kill you.”
“Oh mama!”
“So I killed them,” I told her. “And yes, I think that now…I think that that killed some part of me as well. I don’t know if I’ll ever be whole again after that. But it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t let them live after that, and whatever I had to give up to keep you safe, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I’d do it a thousand times over, and be nothing but an empty husk, a broken shell, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“Oh mama!” Now she did break into a run, throwing herself right into my arms. “Oh mama! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“For what, my dove?” I asked, stroking her hair.
“It’s my fault! If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have had to kill them! You’d still be whole!”
“I might have had to anyway, my dove,” I told her. “To keep all the other children safe. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. You being safe is more important to me than…than anything about me.”
“But that’s not fair, mama! It’s not fair! I can’t protect you like that! It’s not fair!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her yet again. “I don’t care, I don’t care about that at all. And someday you may get to protect me. Someday you may have your chance. Like that stone you gave me. Maybe that was your chance to protect me.”
“Really, mama?” she asked, her tear-stained face turned up towards mine.
“Really,” I promised her, still stroking her hair. “Really. Shall we go back now?”
“All right.” We started walking again. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as we walked. It had been a long and difficult morning for Mirochka, full of frightening revelations, and the sun had only barely cleared the treetops. I had always tried to be truthful with her, and not to shield her too much from the things that anyone, and particularly a princess and possibly a future Tsarina, should know and see, but I was afraid that today’s lesson had overloaded her, and that she might break under the strain. No doubt, I thought glumly, I was in for a night of nightmares. But maybe the future Empress of Zem’ needed to know what nightmares were, for how else could she fight against them? I waited for the next uncomfortable question.
“Look!” cried Mirochka, pointing upwards. “A squirrel!” And sure enough, a little red squirrel, smaller than my hand, chattered at us from a tree branch.
“Do you think we could catch some and take them back with us to the steppe, mama?” she a
sked wistfully.
“No, my dove,” I told her. “We don’t have enough trees for them. And I think that would count as needless harm.”
“Oh. But they might like it out there, mama!”
“No, they wouldn’t,” I said. “They need trees, I’m afraid; the kind of big trees they have here, not the little twisted ones we have on the steppe. But they’re very lovely, aren’t they? Much lovelier than the ground squirrels we have back home.”
“Yes, I wish I could have one…oh mama!” A young doe had stepped out onto the path. Instead of bolting at the sight of us, she froze. Mirochka drew in her breath. The doe slowly turned her head towards us and gave us a long, long look through her large, bright eyes. Then, with a snort and a toss of her head, she stepped gracefully off the path again and disappeared into the woods.
“Oh mama!” cried Mirochka rapturously. “She was so beautiful, wasn’t she? And did you see? She looked at me! She was trying to speak to me!”
“Do you think so, my dove?” I asked.
“Oh, I know it, mama, I know it!”
“Did you understand any of what she was trying to tell you?”
“No…only that she and I are friends now. We’re friends now, mama!”
“Very good,” I said. “She was very beautiful too, wasn’t she, my dove?”
“Oh yes, mama, yes, but how do you think she got here? She had to have come all the way through the city!” And as we walked we speculated on how she could have gotten into the center of Krasnograd, with Mirochka stoutly insisting that she had come here for a reason, and that reason was to say hello to her, Mirochka. I nodded in agreement—and in truth I thought Mirochka might be right. The park was lovely, but there were not many animals in it, at least not compared with the deep woods. It had not escaped my notice that as soon as we had taken the oath, we had been greeted by a hare, a squirrel, and a deer. Krasnoslava and Darya’s animals…perhaps its consequences were even stronger than I had dared to hope, and were already taking effect…
By the time we arrived back at the kremlin palace, servants were already bringing food up to the Imperial apartments for the midday meal, so I left Mirochka with the boys and stopped by Sera’s chambers, to see if I could join her. I was glad to see that when I was let in, she was sitting at the table in the front room, and looking bright and cheerful, with little trace of the weakness of the night before.