by E. P. Clark
“I have a brother!”
“And have you ever changed him?”
“Well…no. He said he wanted to go to a sanctuary, so we sent him to a sanctuary. We never could be bothered to try anything else.”
“So you see I’m right, my dear.”
I glared at her, and she laughed again until I smiled a little and said I had to concede her point. “But he was very young too,” I added. “He really might have changed. Fatherhood changes some men, even if marriage doesn’t.”
“Some men, my dear, that is true, but allow me to observe again that you had only known him for two months—or was it three? Well, no matter—while I had known him his entire life. A proud, hotheaded, steppe woman! It would never do for him!” She stroked my arm. “I won’t say you were wrong, my dear, but don’t regret him. It won’t do either of you any good.”
“Very well. But,” I took her arm and turned her to face me, “why are you telling me this?”
“Oh, my dear!” She laughed again. “With you looking at me like that, I can see what my son saw in you! Such hot blood deserves an answer! If only I were a bit younger…now I think I understand your steppe ways. If I were a bit younger, would I have any hope?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Why did these Western princesses seem to care so much about this? My head for beheading, but they thought about it twice as much as we did in the mountains and the steppe, where it was commonly done. Probably because they wanted it too, but they couldn’t have it, which made them want it twice as much. I gave Princess Vostochnokrasnova a look, but she only laughed some more and said, “Like that, is it? Well, I’ll let you have your secrets. And as for why I’m telling you all this…well, first of all, I do think this plan of your sister’s to marry you to Marina’s Vanya is a good one for all of us. And second of all—I like you.”
“You never showed much sign of it before.”
“Well, when I say I like you, my dear, what I meant is that I admire your spirit. And then…you gave me my only granddaughter thus far, who is also in line for the rule of Zem’. These are significant claims in your favor.”
“I always thought you resented Mirochka’s very existence,” I said. “Certainly no one from her father’s family has ever shown so much as a jot of interest in her.”
“As if you would ever let us get close to her, my dear!”
I gave her another look. “As if you ever gave me any reason to think you wanted to, or could be trusted to have anything to do with her.”
She had the good grace to look ashamed.
“I’m glad to hear you say that you ‘admired my spirit’ now, and that you are so good as to approve of the plan of your own Empress,” I said. “But Mirochka was your only granddaughter, and in line for the rule of Zem’, back when she was born, and yet all the black earth district has been avoiding me, or if they can’t avoid me, insulting me, for the past nine years. Frankly, I was astonished when it began, since I thought that those very considerations you have just mentioned would make it politic for you and the rest of the black earth princesses to try to stay on my good side, no matter how much you may have been offended by the circumstances of Mirochka’s conception, but it seemed that not even basic self-interest had any sway over your actions. Which makes me question what you are doing now. What has brought about this sudden desire for a reconciliation, after such a spectacular break in our relations? And don’t feed me any more of that nonsense about how your care as a mother was the only thing standing between me and your son. I may have been…deceived as to the fidelity of his feelings, and I certainly would have been very upset by any sign of unfaithfulness, but I doubt I would have actually killed him over it, and I can’t believe that the possibility of marital disharmony would stop you from marrying your son to the Tsarina’s only second-sister.”
Some drunken revelers passing by gave her a moment to gather her thoughts, and when we were alone again and she began speaking, she no longer looked ashamed, although she was more serious and—what? Honest?—than I had ever seen her before.
“You are right, my dear,” she began. “We, especially I, should never have turned our backs on you and on Miroslava Valeriyevna like that. It was a grave error in judgment as well as an unpardonable insult to you and your family.”
She paused as if she expected me to say something, but I only waited impatiently for her to carry on, and after a moment, she did.
“As for why, there were many reasons. I did seriously consider letting you make the match, although the reservations I have mentioned about your ability to live in harmony, or at all, with my son were valid and deep. But you are right: a son married to the Tsarina’s only second-sister! It was not a match to be thrown away lightly, and would be worth a fair amount of suffering on his part, and even antagonizing the other black earth princesses by breaking off the betrothal between him and Marina and giving him to a Stepnaya. I don’t have to tell you that there is little love—well, present company excluded, I suppose—lost between our families; no doubt you steppelanders spend your winter evenings telling tales of the perfidy of black earth women. And unfortunately Nika is not the man to make such prejudiced observers think better of his family.”
“He made me think better of him and his origins,” I said, impelled by some impulse of contrariness to defend the man who was, after all, the father of my only daughter. “I was certainly no admirer of the black earth district, but I was able to overcome that.”
“For a time, my dear, but now..? I admit that he’s clever and not ill-looking, but he has no backbone. He’s always happy to do whatever the woman currently standing next to him tells him to. I don’t think that would go over very well on the steppe.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded.
“It was a thorny problem,” she continued. “I passed more than one sleepless night over it. So in the end I went to the Tsarina and asked her what she advised.”
“So it was her,” I said. “She was the one who broke it off. And she didn’t tell me!”
“Perhaps she was afraid that it would cause an irreconcilable breach between you, my dear. The reasons she gave for her decision were not very flattering to either of you.”
“I doubt that was it,” I said. “She’s never been afraid of telling me what to do, or what she thinks of me. She is the Tsarina, after all. But do tell, what were the unflattering reasons she gave?”
“She also thought that the two of you were ultimately…incompatible, and that Nika would provoke you into doing something that would undo all the good of a marriage alliance, and set the steppe and the black earth district against each other, possibly in open conflict.”
“I wouldn’t!” I cried, but that only made Princess Vostochnokrasnova give me a look that was even more withering than the looks I had given her.
“One of these days people are going to realize that I can be a woman of sense, at least on occasion,” I said.
“We’ll believe it when we see it, my dear,” said Princess Vostochnokrasnova. “Although if you will permit me to observe, good sense is not where your strength lies. But,” she patted my arm again, “don’t let that bother you. The world is full of sensible women, but there are very few who will, for example, go tearing across all of Zem’ in order to bring people who may or may not exist to justice.”
“So you don’t think the slave traders exist?”
“I have never seen them, my dear, or heard any reports that would support their existence, but I know very little of what goes on in the world.”
I laughed in disbelief at that, even as I noted how firmly—too firmly!—she held my gaze, but she refused to be drawn into further discussion of what was clearly a very interesting issue, so after a bit I said, “That wasn’t my sister’s only reason, was it?”
“No, my dear,” said Princess Vostochnokrasnova. Did she look relieved to have the talk turn away from the slave trade? Not that she had seemed nervous before, but something about the lines around her eyes and mouth had to
ld me that she knew more than she had let on about it, and that she wasn’t sure what she thought of the knowledge that she had. “She said that she didn’t want to throw away your hand so early, that she wanted to hold it in reserve in case she needed to make some more important alliance later. And she didn’t want to antagonize the black earth princesses. Frankly, my dear, I think that even at the time she was planning a marriage for you with either a Southerner or a Velikokrasnov. A Vostochnokrasnov was certainly not important enough. No doubt as far as she was concerned, Nika’s betrothal with Marina was a blessing, since it saved her from having to forbid the match herself. So she said to go ahead with the marriage between Nika and Marina, and that you could take care of yourself. Of course, we didn’t know about…your situation then.”
“Would it have changed anything?” I demanded.
“Probably not,” admitted Princess Vostochnokrasnova. “And once I found out…I should have come to you, Valeriya Dariyevna, I should have recognized Miroslava Valeriyevna as my granddaughter, but…things were volatile in the black earth district just then, and I thought…I thought I would have more granddaughters, and everyone still had hopes that the Tsarina would produce an heir, so leaving you to raise your daughter in peace on the steppe seemed like the most prudent course of action. People are often not very good at predicting the future and guessing what they should do to reap the most from the coming days.”
“And what now? Are you going to…recognize Mirochka as one of your own? Because I’m not sure I feel like giving my consent to that.”
“I believe it is for the Empress to give her consent,” said Princess Vostochnokrasnova. “But I think it would be best to wait for a few months anyway. Let things settle down. Let us see how your scheme to marry Marina’s Ivan goes. Does he seem amenable to the idea?”
I shrugged.
“Most likely that means he does,” said Princess Vostochnokrasnova. “Not that I can blame him. He’s a good boy, though, Valeriya Dariyevna, so don’t do anything to hurt him.”
“Midsummer has passed. He’s a good man, now, and can answer for his own future.”
“Well, I’ll give you one thing, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Princess Vostochnokrasnova. “If you ever do become Tsarina, you’ll certainly have the backbone for it. And if you catch any of those slavers you’re so sure are out there, they won’t know what’s hit them.” She gave my arm yet another pat. “I should let you go now, to get what rest you can before you set off, but let’s come to an agreement, shall we? Let’s say that I will only watch Miroslava Valeriyevna from afar for the time being, and then when you come back and things have been settled about your marriage, you can introduce her to me and I’ll acknowledge her as my granddaughter. My daughter has only had sons, and Marina appears unlikely to have any more children, alas, but your Miroslava looks like she might be enough for any woman to take pride in. Have a good journey, Valeriya Dariyevna, and I hope that you are successful, and that your success does not tear Zem’ apart.” And with that less-than-encouraging encouragement, she left.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
By this time it was well after midnight, which meant that in just a few short hours I would need to be setting off on my journey, but I decided it was necessary to speak to Sera before collecting Mirochka and going to bed, especially since I was now not sure that I should leave Krasnograd when things were getting so interesting here.
I first went to the balcony where I had left Vyacheslav Irinovich and the unconscious guards, but they were gone. The new guards who were on duty told me that healers had come and taken them all away, and that they thought that Vyacheslav Irinovich had been escorted back to the Tsarina’s chambers, so I crossed the kremlin and, after a brief detour to drop off my sick-stained shirt, which I had been carrying around with me all this time, climbed up to Sera’s rooms.
There was a little fuss with the guards and maids about getting admitted, but I heard Sera calling, “Is that my sister? Let her in!” and the guards stepped aside and the maids opened the door, telling me impressively that the Tsarina had announced her intention to go to bed very soon.
“I’m sure if she wants me to leave, she can just kick me out,” I told them, and went in, ignoring their displeasure. No doubt they were not happy to be up at such a late hour and working when they could be celebrating, but that was just part and parcel of being the Tsarina’s maid. They had warms beds and warm meals and were probably paid in cloth-of-gold or something like that, which was more than most of their sisters in, for example, Outer Krasnograd could say.
Sera and Vyacheslav Irinovich were both in her bedchamber when I came in. Vyacheslav Irinovich was already dressed in his nightclothes and sitting on the bed, but Sera was still in her holiday finery, which was, of course, extremely fine, and was looking longingly out the window at the midnight glow over the city roofs.
“Really, I’m not tired at all,” she was saying. “Don’t you want to go out into the park and celebrate Midsummer properly, my love? That’s what they do in sanctuaries, you know: they spend Midsummer with the trees or the fields or whatever nature is around them. Our human celebrations are so petty and small compared with the magnificence of that midnight sun! Or—the peasants float wreaths and jump over bonfires; doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“I’m sure, my dear, but you are tired, even if you don’t feel it now. If you still want to spend the night outside, we can do it tomorrow,” said Vyacheslav Irinovich patiently.
“Oh, Valya, there you are! I was wondering when you’d show up, after what Slava told me about your adventures on the balcony. Look at that light! I love these white nights, don’t you? Don’t you just want to spend all night outside in this light?”
“It’s even better on the steppe,” I told her. “No trees, no buildings, nothing but tall grass and open sky all around you. At home we ride out until we’re out of sight of our settlement, build a bonfire, and have our celebrations out where there is nothing between us and the gods.”
“And do they come?”
“No, but their presence is close, or so it always seemed to me. But Vyacheslav Irinovich is right: you must be tired, even if you don’t feel it now, and tomorrow night will be another white night, if you want to stay out in it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Sera, turning reluctantly away from the window. “And most likely by tomorrow I’ll have changed my mind anyway. I always think I want to spend the night outside, but I’m sure the reality is very different. The ground is probably damp and hard and cold, and the mosquitoes are probably terrible.”
“There are ways to make the ground more comfortable and the mosquitoes less troublesome, but it is true that people who aren’t accustomed to it find it less pleasant than they had hoped.”
“And starting tomorrow—or rather today—you’ll be sleeping out on the ground, Valya. I wonder how the others will take it? How do you think Alzhbetka will adjust to it?”
“Perhaps she’s more forbearing about that sort of thing than we suspect,” I said. “But that’s what I came to talk to you about. I’m not sure I should leave tomorrow as planned.”
“Oh Valya! Why not?”
“After what happened this evening…”
“You mean the excitement on the balcony?”
“Yes. If what those guards were saying is true, someone slipped them drugged mead, and it seems that the black earth princesses are behind it.”
“Why would anyone slip them drugged mead, and why do you think the black earth princesses are behind it?” Sera asked, sounding now like the acute questioner she was.
“In answer to your second question, because as I’m sure Vyacheslav Irinovich told you, we encountered two people coming from the balcony as we were going to it. I recognized one of them as…as Nika. So after I left Vyacheslav Irinovich and the guards and summoned a healer to go to them, I found him and confronted him about it. He was also a bit drugged, but he said the woman who had been with him was the daughter of his mothe
r’s steward. What they were doing I couldn’t get out of him, not that I couldn’t guess, so I went and found a whole collection of black earth princesses, including his mother and wife, and confronted them. I didn’t get much out of them either, but it looked to me like they were up to something and they knew about the drugged mead. What they were planning to do I don’t know. It also seemed as if there was a division between them over what to do, with Princess Vostochnokrasnova on one side and the others on the other. Princess Vostochnokrasnova was going along with whatever they were doing, but she seemed better disposed towards us and our family than the other princesses. And she knows our plans regarding Ivan, and approves of them, or so she said, and told the other princesses there she thought it was a good idea and that they should go along with it.”
“Very interesting,” said Sera thoughtfully. “So you didn’t get why they were doing all this from them?”
“The situation was not conducive for close questioning. Which is why I think perhaps I should not leave tomorrow. Let us put the journey on hold for a few days, while we question the black earth princesses and get to the bottom of this…whatever was happening out on the balcony.”
Sera considered that for a while. “No,” she said eventually.
“What! Why not? How can I leave now??!”
“We have made this mission of yours too public for you to back out of it now.”
“I wouldn’t be backing out of it! I’d just be delaying it for a few days. I can’t leave you alone when things are so unsettled. And we might gain useful information.”
“You never worried about leaving me alone before, Valya,” said Sera sharply.
“Well, let’s say I’ve grown into my responsibilities as your sister,” I said, trying not to snap back at her. She was tired, and had many cares. Not that that made her behavior any less annoying. “And you specifically asked me for my help in this case, and things are more uncertain than they’ve ever been before.”