by E. P. Clark
“But…surely this is good news?” said Amiran.
“Do you not…” I stopped and looked at them. “You don’t know,” I said.
“Know what?” demanded Alzhbetka.
“The Tsarina…” I had to pause to clear my throat. “I thought it was widespread knowledge, but perhaps not. Perhaps there are some things too painful even for princesses to gossip about. But anyway. The Tsarina is…she has always had difficulty bearing children. With each son she brought into the world, she suffered more than the last, and in between there have been…misfortunes. So the healers told her never again. She must give up all hope of producing an heir; it was too dangerous for her.”
“Was that why she fell ill, the last time I was here?” asked Alzhbetka, now looking sickened.
“Yes,” I said. “She…she got with child, despite the warnings, but…but began to bleed. To stop it, they had to…they decided to try moldy rye. They said it was the only thing that would save her. She said no, but I…I said yes. And it did save her, but she lost all hope of that child and the healers said absolutely never again, it was too risky. But nonetheless, here she is, with child again…and they say it would be just as dangerous to end it as to go on with it, so of course she’s decided to try again, not to do anything that might save her.”
“What possessed her to do such a rash thing, Valeriya Dariyevna, if you’ll pardon my asking?” said Aksinya Olgovna.
“She’s desperate for an heir.”
“She should have been content with the heir she had, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” said Aksinya Olgovna, shaking her head. “But some women are never satisfied unless…” She lapsed into silence, still shaking her head.
“I agree,” I said. “But there is nothing she will let me do about it. So yes, she is unwell. Very unwell, and likely to get worse. But not a word, not a word to anyone about this, not even your sisters or your mothers, do you understand?”
“We understand, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Alzhbetka soberly, and the others all nodded their agreement.
“Is that why we have to get back by midwinter, Valeriya Dariyevna?” asked Aksinya Olgovna.
“Or preferably sooner,” I said. “The healers say midwinter is…when it is expected. The Tsarina wants this to be taken care of, and for me to be back by her side, by the time…well, you understand. So we must travel swiftly and resolve the matter with as much haste as possible. She wants me back…and she wants this not to be hanging over her head as…well, at such a momentous…moment.”
“We understand, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Aksinya Olgovna. She reached out and pressed my arm. “And we will all pray to the gods for the Tsarinovna’s safe delivery.”
“I thank you,” I said. “Although the gods are not known for their kindness.”
“Sometimes they act in our favor anyway, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Aksinya Olgovna. “Sometimes they do. And in the meantime, we’ll do all we can to wipe this stain of slavery from our land and get you back home in time.” She released my arm and stepped back. “Starting with planning a speedy journey to the mountains. So,” she smiled and turned to the three younger members of the party, “what about your horses?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Midsummer’s Day dawned bright and hot. Mirochka, not at all to my surprise, leapt out of bed long before the maids brought in breakfast, and, wriggling around the room like a young puppy, tried to convince me to go out to the stables to visit the horses, or go out to the park to visit the trees, or in general go out somewhere and do something that would allow her to spend some of her wealth of energy.
“If you want to stay up all night tonight, you should sleep in this morning,” I told her.
“I can’t, mama, I can’t,” she said, jumping up and down to try and look out the window, but failing to get enough height to see enough to satisfy her. “It’s Midsummer! We should do something to celebrate!”
“We will,” I told her. “There will be festivities all evening and probably all through the night.”
“That’s so far away! Let’s go out, mama!”
“If we do that we’ll disturb others who are trying to sleep,” I told her. “We should wait at least until the maids come in with breakfast before we go anywhere. Come back to bed.”
But that proved to be utterly ineffective, as did turning my face into the pillow and ignoring her, and so I was forced to admit defeat and, rising reluctantly from the bed, take her down to the one place I was sure we would find a welcome, the kitchen.
Despite the early hour, the kitchen was swarming, with a small army of serving girls and boys washing, chopping, kneading, frying, and boiling, and Alyona Vasilisovna standing by the big table and directing seventeen things at once.
“Perhaps we should come back later,” I told Mirochka. “We shouldn’t bother them when they’re working.”
“But mama…” she said, and started to make her way into the kitchen. I grabbed her by the shoulder to drag her back, but Alyona Vasilisovna had already caught sight of us.
“Valeriya Dariyevna!” she called over the clouds of steam, smoke, and flying flour. “And this must be your little princess.”
“I’m sorry; we weren’t thinking. We’ll leave you to your work.”
“Nonsense,” she said, abandoning the boys making pastry to come over to us. “Come on in. It will do the little princess good to see what we do down here.”
“Mirochka, this is Alyona Vasilisovna, the head cook,” I said. “You should bow to her.”
Mirochka bobbed up and down and stared at Alyona Vasilisovna in fascination. “I think I’ve seen you somewhere before, aunty,” she said.
“‘Alyona Vasilisovna,’” I corrected her. The gods knew I was not a stickler for politeness, and there was hardly anyone back on the steppe that Mirochka could call by name and matronymic anyway, but somehow I felt that in this case it was appropriate.
“Aunty’s fine,” said Alyona Vasilisovna. “After all, it’s practically true, and I’ve already taken a liking to your little princess. So where do you think you’ve seen me before, my daughter?”
“In a dream,” said Mirochka decisively. “I was out walking around, and I ran into you.”
“Out walking around in your dream, were you? What did you see? The park? Your steppe?”
“No, I mean I was out walking around in dreams,” explained Mirochka, giving Alyona Vasilisovna a look expressing her surprise at someone not being able to understand such elementary things. “Sometimes at night I go walking around in everyone’s dreams, and one night I walked into yours. Only it was a long time ago, before I came here to Krasnograd. I just remembered when I saw you. I thought it was an ordinary dream until I came in here and I saw you, but now I know it wasn’t. You were dreaming about a little girl who looked like me, and you thought I was her, and you were sad when I wasn’t.”
Alyona Vasilisovna stared at Mirochka, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, cleared her throat, and looked at me helplessly. I looked just as helplessly back at her.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I told her.
“Was it in the spring, my dove?” asked Alyona Vasilisovna. “This past spring, just after the start of Oakmoon?”
“Yes,” said Mirochka. “Are there oaks here, Alyona Vasilisovna? Do they really leaf out during Oakmoon? We don’t have them on the steppe.”
“There are and they do, my dove,” said Alyona Vasilisovna. She looked down at Mirochka with something between laughter and tears chasing itself across her face. “I remember that dream, my dove. I was dreaming of my little niece. I dreamed that she came to speak to me, and then she turned into someone else who was like enough to be her sister. I thought about that dream for a long time, wondering what it might mean.”
“Where is she now, aunty?” asked Mirochka. “Your little niece? She must be a woman long grown.”
“She never did grow into a woman, my dove,” said Alyona Vasilisovna. “It’s not given for all littl
e girls to grow into women.” She reached down and stroked Mirochka’s shoulder. “But in your case I think it is.”
“Well, of course,” said Mirochka. “So what will be at the feast tonight? Will you be staying up all night for the celebrations? Mama said I could stay up all night tonight. It will be my first time staying up all night. Have you done it before?”
“Many times, my dove,” said Alyona Vasilisovna. “Many, many times. Enough that I think I might go to bed early, if I can. But you stay up as late as you wish. Would you like to see what we’re making down here for you?”
“Oh yes!” said Mirochka, and, taking Alyona Vasilisovna’s hand, followed her over to the ovens to inspect the pastries.
I thought Mirochka would weary of the kitchens soon enough, but, enticed by the activity and the samples of the evening’s delicacies that were constantly being pressed on her, she happily passed the better part of the morning there, while I sat at a table and listened in to the conversations between the serving folk. Their primary concerns, of course, were the handsome men and pretty women who had caught their eyes but did not seem ready to return their suit with equal interest, and I heard enough advice on the topic to fill volumes. Sometimes I even thought about adding to the stream of speculation and advice flowing around me, but then I remembered my own spectacular lack of success in this area, and kept my mouth firmly shut. Until one young woman, who hitherto had been kneading dough silently in a corner, her eyes downcast, admitted under heavy pressure from the others that yes, a certain Andrey had indeed returned to his home village to marry the woman of his mother’s choice.
“And good riddance to bad rubbish!” exclaimed Kirochka, an under-cook who appeared to be the particular friend of the downcast young woman kneading dough. “You’re too good to be running after an inconstant man, Valenka. You’ll find ten twice as good by next week, my head for beheading.”
“I’m sure,” said Valenka, her lips quivering. “It’s just…I don’t want ten twice as good. I just want him.”
“We’ll find someone to drive him out of your head quick enough,” said Kirochka, slapping her on the shoulder. “Just you see. Now, don’t go crying into the Tsarina’s bread! Hand that over before you ruin it, you silly girl.” She snatched the dough out of Valenka’s hands and bustled off to the ovens with it.
“As one Valeriya to another,” I found myself saying in a low voice to Valenka, while privately thinking that that particular version of our name, which bore such a strong resemblance to the name of the felt boots black earth peasants wore in winter, boded no good for its bearer, “I can assure you that you don’t need ten twice as good. You don’t even need one half as good, if you don’t want him. What you really need is something else entirely.”
Valenka raised her tear-stained face to look into mine, and the dreadfully familiar pain I saw there made my heart turn over. Could I really be risking that again? More fool me.
“What do I need, noblewoman?” she asked dutifully.
“Something else to care about,” I told her. “Something else to make life worth living. There are more things in the world than men, you know; sometimes we just need to be reminded of that fact. Especially after…something like what happened to you.”
Valenka gave me a look filled with tearful doubt, but before she could fail to argue with me (because she obviously disagreed, but would never even consider arguing with someone as important as myself, even though I could tell that she didn’t recognize me personally), Kirochka came bustling back and said, “Our Valenechka isn’t bothering you with her foolishness, is she, Valeriya Dariyevna?”
“Not at all,” I said. “We were just commiserating, that’s all. And I was trying to convince her that the best thing right now is to have something else to think about.”
“Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Kirochka without thinking, and then clapped her hands over her mouth. “I beg your pardon,” she said, looking mortified. “I didn’t mean…I mean, what I meant was…”
“I know what you meant,” I told her. “And I take no offense. And yet,” I turned to Valenka, “here I am, alive and well, as unlikely as such an outcome seemed to me at the time.”
Valenka gave me a puzzled look, and I realized that back when my name had been on the lips of everyone in Krasnograd, she had been a young girl in some distant village, and that it was entirely possible she had no idea who I was or what I had done.
“Something similar happened to me when I was your age,” I told her kindly. “It was quite a scandal.”
“And…what happened then, noblewoman?” asked Valenka tremulously. “Did you…what happened to him?”
“He married his mother’s choice, and I fled back to my mother in disgrace,” I told her, more jauntily than I felt.
“You were disgraced, noblewoman?” she said, surprised. “Why should you be disgraced? Surely he was the one whose reputation…”
“Oh, I dare say his reputation suffered a great deal. But not enough to stop the marriage from going through. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I survived, and you probably will too, even if right now it doesn’t seem like it. The pain is all out of proportion to the injury.”
“If you say so, noblewoman,” said Valenka dully, displaying (I thought again privately) all the backbone of the felt boots that were her namesake.
“She does, Valenka, and you should listen to her,” Kirochka told her, putting her hands on her hips and fixing her friend with a stern glare. “And if you ask me, you’re both better off without them. From what I’ve heard, neither of them have a faithful bone in their bodies, and who wants that in a husband?”
“What have you heard?” I demanded. “What have you heard about…him?” I realized that I had jumped to my feet, and Kirochka was cowering back from me. I forced myself to take a step back. “I apologize,” I told her. I glanced over to Mirochka, afraid that she had seen what had taken place, but she was off on the other side of the kitchen, engrossed in the preparation of a platter of intricate pastries. “I did not mean to startle you,” I continued. “But…I have to know. What have you heard?”
Kirochka edged a little deeper into the corner, and Valenka and I followed her. “Begging your pardon, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said. “I thought…well, I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
She took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll start off by saying you’re better off without him, Valeriya Dariyevna, like I already said. He did a foolish thing when he turned you down and no mistake, but it saved you a deal of trouble.”
“This is news to me,” I told her. “The general wisdom seems to be quite the opposite.”
“Maybe in your set, Valeriya Dariyevna, begging your pardon, but in ours…You know that he was running around with the daughter of his mother’s mistress of horse when he took up with you?”
“Impossible!” I cried. Kirochka and Valenka both looked at me in surprise. “I mean…” I could feel a blush that would have done Ivan credit spreading over my cheeks. At least this corner of the kitchen was dark. “I thought…his knowledge of women was so little…”
“Or maybe that’s what he wanted you to think, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Kirochka. “It’s easy enough for men to hide their pasts. I was still a child then, but my father worked in all the stables over on Black Earth Street, whenever they needed an extra hand, and he used to take me with him, and I saw them together more than once. Even when he was running around with you in the evenings, he was still meeting with her in the mornings. And then he went and married a third woman.”
“And…now?” I asked, my voice hissing through a throat that suddenly couldn’t take in enough air.
“They say there’s some under-gardener who’s taken his fancy, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Kirochka. “Mind, I don’t think it’s anything…I think he just falls in with women too easily, and before he knows it, there he is.”
“Does…does Princess Velikokrasnova know?” I asked
.
Kirochka shrugged. “If you ask me, she turns a blind eye to it, Valeriya Dariyevna. He’s discreet enough, but she must suspect. My third-sister works in their house, though, and she says she doesn’t think she cares. She never had any great liking for him, you know: she just wanted the alliance and a husband—and then to take something from the steppe, when things turned out as they did and the chance came up. And she’d never want a good husband anyway: she’d rather have someone she could despise, someone she could torment, just as he’d never want a wife he’d have to be faithful to. They’d both rather be miserable, just like our Valenka’s Andrey.”
“I can’t speak for Valenka’s Andrey,” I said. “But that does…well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t say I’m glad to hear this, Kirochka, but I thank you for telling me. It…it explains many things.”
“It most surely does, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Kirochka. “It surely explains a lot of things. Come on, Valenka, we’ve got more bread to bake.” And she led Valenka off to the rising pans, leaving me to my own thoughts.
Much as I despised myself for it, I found myself going over memories that had once filled my every waking moment, but that I had since learned to suppress with an iron fist. Had he really known other women before me, and even run around with them while he was with me? He had never mentioned any other women that I could recall, but I could also not recall any instances in which he had claimed the purity I had assumed. He had seemed so tentative, so shy when we were together…but perhaps he had been feigning his inexperience, just as Kirochka had said, or maybe—mortifying thought!—what I had taken to be the reticence of sheltered innocence and prudent virtue, which I had overcome with the assurances of my own faithful affection, had in fact been the ambivalence of lukewarm feeling, which I had overcome through my own blind desperation to gain my point and fix him as mine forever. Of course the whole affair had been of my own instigation, but that was only natural; aside from the chaste behavior that was generally expected of a young man of noble blood, I had never had any interest in men who chased me. Certainly he had been the one to catch my eye at that feast Sera had held to celebrate my first summer in Krasnograd as a woman grown, and certainly I had been the one to suggest all the public meetings and hidden trysts that we had had, but there was nothing odd about that, nor about his initial appearance of reserve and indifference.