by E. P. Clark
The next difficulty was to decide whether we should return to the main road or continue down the traders’ road and see what we could discover. At first I was very much in favor of the latter, but a little thought made me decide that it would be best to return to the main road and our mission, and send a whole armed patrol to investigate the secret road. If we did happen to fall upon a caravan, and they happened to be heavily guarded, as I had to imagine they were likely to be, we would be hard pressed to take them, and stood a good chance of sustaining losses ourselves in the attempt. So I announced that we would return to the main road and make for the travelers’ cabin, which everyone agreed, looking even more relieved than before, was the best choice. I still had my doubts, but it was certainly the sensible choice, and, I told myself, the time for recklessness would come.
Before we left I made one more sweep through the main cabin, trying to decide what to take for evidence. After a certain amount of deliberation, I took a couple of Aleftina Vasilisovna’s ledgers, and left the rest. I considered leaving them all, especially as I certainly couldn’t carry the whole set, and I was afraid that if she came back before I could return and found the missing ledgers, she would know that someone had been here, and abandon the place, but I needed proof, and they were the best proof I had, so I took the ones that matched Anastasiya Olesyevna’s, and tumbled the others onto the desk, hoping that at first glance it would look like it had been done by the wind, or some animal. Of course, if anyone came back soon, it would be obvious that we had been there anyway, but I had to try, and hope for the best.
I asked Masha if she would like to come with us to the traveler’s cabin on the main road, but she said no, she was going to return to her own cabin, so, with some reluctance, I let her go after getting detailed directions on how to find her, and giving her detailed instructions in turn on how to find me. This involved telling her who I was, which came as quite a shock.
“The Tsarina’s second-sister?” she asked, staring at me incredulously. “Truly?”
“Truly,” I told her. “Why not?”
“But…I knew you was a very great noblewoman right away by the way you talked an’ the way you looked at everyone an’ ordered everyone about, but…”
“Someone has to be the Tsarina’s second-sister,” I told her. “It might as well be me.”
“But…”
“And so,” I continued over her feeble objections, “when I promised to you that I would do everything in my power to find these people, the ones who did this to your sister and brother, I was promising not only for myself, but in the Tsarina’s name, and when I told you that you might need to come to Krasnograd and tell the Tsarina herself about what happened to them, I told you true. Which is why, if no one comes for you in two months, Masha, I need you to promise, promise on their memory, that you will come to Krasnograd yourself and tell the Tsarina everything that you told me, and offer to show her people the way to this place.”
“The Tsarina!” she exclaimed faintly. “Tell the Tsarina!”
“Yes. Here.” We were standing in Aleftina Vasilisovna’s study, so I took a scrap of paper and scribbled a note on it, which I gave to Masha. “She should be able to recognize my hand. Really,” I added, seeing Masha’s frightened face, “she’s not that terrible, I swear, and she’ll want to hear what you have to say. You should have no trouble getting an audience with her, if you tell the guards why you’re there, and she’ll listen to you with sympathy.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You know…”—she looked at me thoughtfully—“I never would’ve believed it afore, but lookin’ at you…now I do. Since she’s your sister an’ all. If anyone’d ever told me that the Tsarina’s own sister would be like you, I’d have never believed ‘em, but now…”
“Believe it,” I told her. “I mean to catch these people and bring them to justice, and the Tsarina stands behind me.”
“In that case…” said Masha. “You know, just talkin’ to you…I feel better…ever since we stood together at the graveyard an’ I told you what’d happened, I’ve felt better, stronger, more like my own self. It were like you was pourin’ strength into me or somethin’, healin’ me, even though there were nothin’ wrong with me, not really.”
“Of course there was,” I said, more tartly than I should have. “You lost your sister and brother. That’s a terrible wound for anyone to bear.”
“I s’ppose you’re right, noblewoman, an’ now it’s like…like the hole in my heart has started to knit back together again.” And with that she promised she would come to Krasnograd and try to speak with the Empress if no one came for her in the next two months. I would have liked her to set off for Krasnograd immediately, but she said she needed gather her stores as best she could now and she couldn’t go running off to Krasnograd before she’d set what she needed by for the winter, otherwise she’d starve to death once the snow came on, so I had to content myself with that, and let her set off towards her own cabin, while we saddled up the horses, and, with a sense of grim relief at what we had found and on leaving it behind us, we set off too.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Returning to the road on the narrow track through the trees seemed even slower than it had coming the other way, probably because we were anxious to leave and had no one to guide us, and by the time we made it to the main road, the midsummer nighttime twilight had already settled over us. I knew that out on the steppe, it was still bright and sunny, but here in the woods the shadows were long and dark and the sky seemed far away. The air was still, and mosquitoes attacked us mercilessly, causing the horses to swish their tails and snap at themselves, and the humans to slap themselves again and again.
The irritating whine of the mosquitoes and the fidgeting of my party matched the anxiety of my thoughts. I fretted over whether or not I had made the right decision to leave the cabins and the road, and to take some of the ledgers and leave the others, and not to dig up the graveyard…Ivan and Alzhbetka were riding together again. Not that there was anything wrong with that, I told myself. Their horses got along well, and that was important when riding so close together…but after the way that Ivan had looked at me over and over again today, I couldn’t help but think he must be thanking the gods he hadn’t agreed to my proposal before we set off, and making plans to marry anyone other than me…the thought made me bite the inside of my cheek, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, so I told myself I would just have to get through it, just like I had with the search of the cabins, and keep going, no matter how bad it felt.
We were able to bunch up and pick up a slow trot once we were on the road. I—a little afraid for some reason that my intentions would be obvious to the others, but doing it anyway—maneuvered myself to be right behind Ivan, Amiran, and Alzhbetka, who were riding three abreast, with Alzhbetka in the middle. Alzhbetka was asking the two boys—men, I reminded myself; she might treat them as boys, but they had come of age and were grown men, not little boys—Alzhbetka was asking them how they were, if they had recovered from the horrors of the afternoon, and saying with more sympathy than I ever would have given her credit for possessing that it must have been particularly hard for them, given how much more, it seemed, the boys at that place suffered. I tried to resist the urge to grind my teeth, but failed. Now I looked like even more of a monster, while Alzhbetka—oh irony of ironies!—was coming across as the kind and caring one. I should just give up now…
“It was unpleasant, but it was good that we saw it,” said Ivan, interrupting my musings of despair.
“How can it be good to see something like that!” cried Alzhbetka, suddenly sounding a lot less caring and a lot more like her ordinary arrogant self.
“If it happens, if other people have to live through it—or not live through it, but be buried in that graveyard—then I can look on it. I must look on it,” said Ivan. “I should—we all should—know what is taking place in our own land. Especially if our own peop
le are complicit in it.”
Alzhbetka made a few feeble arguments against that, but it was evident that it was her distaste talking, nothing more, and I found myself remarkably cheered by Ivan’s words. Which was good, because it took us till well past suppertime to find the travelers’ cabin, and everyone was tired, hungry, and short-tempered as we rode the last few versts, including the horses, who were making it very difficult with their antics for me to remain cheerful and calm as I was determined to do. They finally settled down and began trotting briskly when they sensed the cabin, and then we smelled its smoke coming through the trees, but even so, I was stupidly surprised to see its windows lit and smoke coming out of its chimney, and realize that it was already occupied. As we rode closer, I saw that the gate to the stockade fence around it was closed.
“The Black God take it!” I swore, and then regretted it, because everyone looked very apprehensive, especially the young ones.
“What will we do now?” asked Alzhbetka, her face drawn like she was struggling not to cry. I could hardly blame her: after everything that had happened today, I felt like crying myself.
“We’ll find room, never worry,” I said with all the cheer and confidence I could muster, and, riding over to where the fence stood closest to a window, shouted, “Hello! Who’s there? Can you hear us?”
But I could hear the sounds of lively conversation and cookery and even snatches of song coming from inside the cabin, and no one seemed to notice my call. I looked around. The ground was inconveniently free of rocks or pebbles. Then I spotted a fir tree with large, inviting cones, rode over and plucked one, and came back and threw one through the window and into the kitchen. The conversation inside came to a sudden halt, and then, after a moment, a broad, friendly face looked out the window.
“Hello, travelers!” she called. “Looking for a place to stay?”
“Yes,” I said. “How much room is there?”
“A bit in here, and plenty more in the hayloft, I’ll warrant!” she answered cheerfully.
“And for our horses?”
“Enough, if you put some of them in the paddock.” She eyed our party, and added, “Or we could move ours there. Yours like a good deal finer, noblewoman.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “The weather’s clear, and ours will do perfectly well in the paddock. Some are steppe horses, and used to being outside.”
“Well, come in, then, come in! I’ll send Alyosha ‘round to open the gate.” She withdrew her head from the window and shouted into the cabin, “Alyosha! Alyosha! We’ve got visitors! Go open the gate!”
We rode around to the gate, which was held open for us by a merry-faced young man, clearly the son of the woman I’d spoken to. “How many of you are there?” I asked as I came in.
“Just the four of us, noblewoman,” he answered cheerfully. “Mother, father, Ksyusha, and me.” He looked over our horses with appreciation, especially Zlata.
“From the steppe?” he asked, stepping aside to let us through. “I’ve always wanted a steppe horse. Mother says if our next venture goes well, then we’ll be able to afford one. Where’d you get this one, noblewoman?”
“From my herd,” I told him. “Are the paddocks…Oh, I see them.”
“You’re sure you don’t want us to move our horses out of the stable, noblewoman?” he asked, closing the gate and running to rejoin me as I rode over to the paddocks. “For a horse like that it wouldn’t be any trouble at all!”
“I thank you, but they’ll be fine outside,” I told him, dismounting. He rushed over to open the paddock gate for me, and followed me in.
“I’ll untack her and rub her down for you if you like, noblewoman,” he offered, gazing at Zlata with lover-like admiration. “I’m good with horses, I am, everyone says so.”
“I’m sure you are. But I like to take care of her myself.”
“And right you are, noblewoman! If I had a horse like that…from your own herd, you said? Are you from the steppe then?”
“I am. But we’re currently riding from Krasnograd. And you?” And by the time I had untacked Zlata, rubbed her down, and supervised the feeding of all our horses—a process that required close attention, since, as was common with high-blooded horses, not all of them got on very well with each other, so they all had to be divided into groups of mutually tolerable members in the two paddocks, and then given their food in carefully spaced locations, and watched while they ate their grain, to make sure no fights broke out, something I thought might diminish Alyosha’s enthusiasm for high-blooded horses, but, in a sign that he truly was horse-mad, only increased it—I had discovered that Alyosha’s family handled most of the trading for their village, and they were all traveling to Srednerechye to trade their village’s first crops.
“You should go to the steppe to the fall horse fair, if you’re looking for steppe horses,” I advised him. “There’s a good fair right on the edge, by the main road, at the equinox. The finest horses will have already been sold in the spring, but there are still plenty of good horses available, and that’s when prices are often best.” As I said it the image of the cabins we had found with the bars on the outside of the doors rose in my mind, and I felt very uncomfortable, but Alyosha didn’t seem to notice it at all.
“And they say that prices are high this summer in the towns, noblewoman!” he exclaimed jubilantly as we walked from the paddocks over to the cabin, where Aksinya Olgovna had already led the others with the promise of starting supper for us.
“They are,” I confirmed. “Everyone says trade has been disrupted this year, and prices are very high because of it.”
“Well, all the better for us, eh, noblewoman!” he said, opening the door and ushering me into the cabin. He dropped the topic for a moment to introduce me to his family, who consisted of mother, father, older sister, and a huge reddish-brown dog who stood practically as high as my waist and who, as soon as we came in, was sent out to guard the paddocks.
“So it’s true, then, noblewoman?” asked Marusya, his mother, as soon as she could get a word in edgewise over Alyosha exuberant chattering flow. “Prices are high in town?”
“At least double in Krasnograd,” I said. “I came from the steppe myself, and we’d no troubles there, at least not when I left, but everything is outrageously expensive in Krasnograd right now, and they say that trade has been disrupted and goods aren’t coming in as they should be.”
“Oh, well…that’s odd…nothing’s bothered us…although it’s true that none of the big caravans have come through like you’d expect…I guess it’s just us small traders bringing goods in…that might explain it…”
“So the big caravans aren’t coming through…whose caravans normally come through?” I asked, with the best appearance of casual interest I could muster.
“Oh let me see, noblewoman…Yevgeniya Taisyevna’s, sometimes, and Marya Vladislavovna’s…and of course Aleftina Vasilisovna’s; she always came through, every year and sometimes two or three times, but this year so far we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her, and it’s long past time…”
“How strange,” I said sympathetically. “That must be a great hardship for your village, not to have the regular caravans come through.”
“Oh, we make do, noblewoman, we can shift for ourselves pretty well…but there’s no arguing that we’re all hankering for their things by now…everyone’s just about out of spices, and we’ve all gotten a taste for those Eastern flavors…and tea, of course, tea’s the main thing…and some of us wouldn’t say no to some nice fabrics, like what you get from the city or from the East, and some of those city devices, metal things, you know…I’ve never seen a year when no one came through our village; they don’t always come every year but there’s always at least one or two…I wonder what’s keeping them…well, it’s good what you told us about the prices in Krasnograd; maybe it will be the same in Srednerechye: we’ve got a fine selection of new potatoes; we weren’t sure whether they were worth bringing all that way, but
now it sounds like people might be glad of them…maybe we can sell them for a lot, buy some things…of course, if prices are high, everything we want will probably be dear too, but we’ll just have to see…” And she went on in that vein for a while, discussing strategies with her husband and children and answering my further questions about the mysterious non-appearance of the usual caravans in her village with a friendly but distracted “I’m sure I can’t say, noblewoman.” It was only after we had all finished our supper, which had been produced as a joint effort, using joint stores, by Aksinya Olgovna and Ksyusha, Marusya’s daughter, that Marusya thought to ask us what we were doing on the road and where we were going.
“We’re investigating the disappearance of children,” I told her. “Particularly children in villages, children from poor families…have you heard of anything of the sort?”
“Oh, noblewoman, oh, it’s too terrible! We have, we have! Last year, you know...well, it was shortly after a caravan came through, funnily enough…anyway, the children took the animals out to graze, as they do, you know, every day, only this time…not all of them came back. The animals all came back; well, all except the little dog that used to go out with the children, the ones who disappeared, you know, you know how the children all bring dogs out with them, to help them with the guarding and the herding, and these children—three from the same family, the sweetest little things you could imagine; their poor mother died a couple of years back and now it’s just them and their father—well, now just the father, of course, it’s too sad—well, they didn’t have much before their mother passed, and once she did, they had hardly anything, but they were all so sweet and so beautiful—the most beautiful children in the village, everyone agreed, and the oldest girl was so clever at everything she did, such quick neat little hands, you could see she’d run a good house as soon as she came of age—so we all did what we could to help them out, and their father was always willing to lend a hand if anyone needed help with anything, always had a smile for everyone, although he wasn’t the brightest, poor man, wasn’t much of a worker, but wit isn’t everything, no it isn’t—well anyway, they just had a small little dog, it was all they could afford to feed, poor things, and they went out with their two cows in the morning, and in the evening they didn’t come back. Well, the cows did, eventually, lowing and looking lost, but the children and the dog didn’t. So we all went out and searched for them, and we found…it was too terrible…the little dog’s body, but the children were gone, just gone, noblewoman.”