by Dave Duncan
Fedor lumbered across to her, going so close that her nose was almost in his beard. “Who?”
To refuse him an answer would be insane, yet Tasha just glared up at him stubbornly until Sophie’s heart rose into her throat. Then—
“Vasili Grigorievich Ovtsyn, Your Highness. But your royal father has not yet been—”
“Ovtsyn? Ovtsyn?” Fedor’s thunderous laugh almost drowned out Mother Tharik’s next great Klong! “That gang of traitors?” He shook his big head in disbelief and glanced at Sophie. “Go in. He wants you.” Then down at Tasha again, with a leer that made Sophie wonder if she dared leave.
“You’re certainly nubile enough,” the Czarevich said. “Looks like you’re growing a nice udder in there. Go, Mother! He’s waiting.”
Czar Igor had ruled Skyrria for thirty-three years, outliving two wives and four children. His third wife had been banished to internal exile for the sin of infertility. Since his fourth seemed equally unable to provide him with children, the court did not expect her to last much longer.
He was a bulky, bearish man with a nose like a moldboard plow and an apron of mud-colored beard now streaked with gray and frequently with spittle. However impassive the rest of him might appear, his eyes were never still. He would sit immobile and silent for long periods, slumped in his chair, watching everyone with the glittering scan of a bird of prey. He rarely bore arms, as such, preferring to carry a knout of pleated bull hide, with which he was said to have disarmed several alleged attackers, for one slash of its knotted thongs could shred a man’s face.
Mindful of her towering hat, Sophie doubled over lower than usual to creep through into her husband’s bedchamber. She located him standing ahead of her and would have dropped straight into her obeisance had she not been attacked. Something roared and leaped forward. Screaming in terror, she slammed back against the masonry.
Chaos ensued, with the Czar roaring, “Iakov! Down, Iakov!” while heaving on the monster’s chain and simultaneously thrashing it wildly with his knout. The contestants seemed equally matched in strength and ferocity, boots and claws sliding and slithering on the bear skins. Teeth flashed, the knout rose and fell. Only when the blows became so savage that they cut through the hairy hide did the snarling turn to howls; the brute rolled over to bare its throat in submission. Shaking as if she had an ague, Sophie looked down on what must be the largest hound in the world. Igor had always had a taste for such monsters, but she had never seen one this size before.
“That’s better!” Igor slackened the chain to offer his left hand to the beast, keeping the knout raised and ready to strike in his right. Whimpering, the animal cautiously rolled over and raised its forequarters until it could lick his fingers. “Good, good! Good boy!” He fondled its ears. Whining in pleasure, it nuzzled his leg. Its tail thumped.
“How do you like my little pet, wife?”
“It is magnificent, Your Majesty—worthy of its master.” Her heart was still careering wildly around inside her chest. “It would eat wolves for appetizers.”
He smiled at that, but Igor’s smiles were never welcome. “You know why I love my pets, wife?”
“Because they are brave defenders, sire?”
“Because I can trust them!” Eyes and teeth glittered. “I have enemies, hundreds of enemies plotting and conspiring, and I can trust no one, no one at all—except my dogs. I can thrash them and maltreat them and they still love me. Even Iakov, here. You see how I beat him and yet, look! He kisses my hand. People are not so loving. One word from me and he would kill you—you believe me?”
“Yes, I do believe Your Majesty!”
“Or anyone.” He shuddered. “So many traitors! Witches, poisoners! They killed Ludmilla, my beloved. I loved her, loved her!”
“Yes, sire.” Sophie braced herself for one of his mad, foaming harangues.
“And Avramia, my little rose. And Melania. Igor, my heir! Alexis—” His gaze darkened. “Well?”
The Czarina hastily remembered her manners and sank to her knees. More cautiously, she touched her face to the hairy rugs, for this move put her dangerously near Iakov’s slobbering jaws. There was something unnatural about the way the hound’s eyes watched her. It wrinkled its nose in a snarl, but made no sound.
“Your Majesty is most welcome back.”
He grunted and bent to fondle the hound as it licked its wounds. “Me and Iakov? Up, then!”
Sophie rose. Her husband did not offer to kiss her.
“Shut the door.”
Still shaking, she obeyed. Fedor must have heard the ruckus. Igor had staged the attack for his own and Fedor’s amusement, setting the brute on her and then beating it off.
“No child yet?” He was petting the dog, yet watching her too.
“Alas no. I long to bear a child for Your Majesty.” That was what a czarina was for. Motherhood would be an interest as well as a defense.
He did not comment. “Why was Fedor laughing?”
“My sister…mentioned Vasili Ovtsyn as a potential husband, sire.”
He glared—face flushing, eyes glittering with fury. “By the stars! They would dare?”
“I am sure Dimitri means no offense, sire! If the notion offends you, then he will surely withdraw from any…discussion has been very preliminary. It can be canceled.”
“Indeed it can. Follow!” Pausing only to unleash Iakov, the Czar headed for the door with the giant hound pacing at his heel.
• 2 •
The only thing worse than being first in line to the throne was being second in line—so the Czarevna Katrina had often told her son, and she must have known, because she had been either first or second all her life, as her brother’s various offspring had been born, sickened, and died. The heir apparent had only to grovel and obey, she had said, but the next in line must always be suspected of plotting against both Czar and Czarevich. Twice a child’s malady had raised charges of witchcraft against her, with threats of the stake. Innocence was a poor defense, for Igor saw conspiracies everywhere.
From her Dimitri had inherited a hatred of politics, which were bloody anywhere and especially so in Skyrria. With a wife and soon a child to cherish, he regarded ambition as pure folly. He had been sixteen when his parents died, probably from witchcraft, leaving him to care for his sisters and defend the Temkin lands from predatory neighbors and relatives, of whom his Uncle Igor was never the least rapacious. In the dozen years since then, Dimitri had stood second in line behind Czarevich Fedor. His most fervent wish had always been to find some means of shedding that grim honor, some way to renounce his kinship entirely and devote his life to being a simple landowner, husband, and father. Above all, he wished his sister the Czarina would start producing sons—healthy and many of them—for her sake and his.
Up on the dais, Sophie was so bundled inside her vestments that he could not have told if she were as near to term as Yelena. Only her face was visible, a lost waif peering out under a hat like a bejeweled kettledrum. Where was the merry child the Czar had married three years ago?
Igor himself dominated the hall on the ancient ivory throne of Kiensk. The Hall of Columns was very long and wide, but low-roofed and marred by the hundred pillars that gave it its name and ruined its sight lines. Clad in all their greatest finery—brocade robes, jewels, and towering fur hats—the nobility of Skyrria cowered on benches in humble silence, waiting for the Czar to explain his purpose. He was in no haste to do so, preferring to sit and finger the blood-blackened thongs of his knout while his eyes scanned the hall. A monstrous hound lay panting at his feet and black-clad streltsy guards prowled through the forest of columns, streltsy swordsmen guarded every door.
The throne was flanked, one step down, by two plain wooden chairs, one bearing his wife and the other the hulking Czarevich. Fedor was smirking, enjoying himself. Where Igor was mad but clever, his son was just a brute. It was not true, Dimitri’s mother had insisted, that all the Tharik males were crazy, for Igor had been a good Czar until the dea
th of Melania, his first Czarina. Convinced that her fever was caused by witchcraft, since then he had attributed every misfortune to treason—the death of his second wife, Ludmilla, and all his children except one. It was sad chance that Fedor had been the only survivor of the five. Fedor was Tharik male at its worst.
As senior among the princes, Dimitri occupied the center of the front row of benches, facing the throne. He had agreed that Grigori Ovtsyn might sit beside him today, but ever since Tasha had returned from greeting Sophie, he knew that he had been tricked. Fedor was sneering in his direction a little too obviously.
In his long rule, Igor had not extended the boundaries of his empire much, despite many bloody wars. He had met with more success in clipping the powers of the princes and boyars. One by one he cut them out of the pack and cut their throats—sometimes figuratively, sometimes not. If he felt merciful he would merely reduce a victim to poverty. They never dared try to unite against him, for his spies were everywhere—The third man in a plot is the Czar, said the proverb. The survivors were gathered there that morning, waiting to hear whose throat was next.
Experienced courtiers looked for clues: Igor himself showing more white in his beard but no obvious signs of ill-health, the Czarevich bigger than ever. Would he never stop growing? Had he been seated closer than usual to his father? Was the Czar about to proclaim him joint ruler? History offered precedents, but Igor was not the sort of man to share power with anyone. The Czarina’s chair was farther from the throne than Fedor’s, but not so distant as it would be if she were to be set aside. The senior officers in attendance nearby showed all the usual faces and no new ones—the brutal Viazemski, commander of the streltsy, aging Chief Boyar Skuratov, Chief Conjurer Ryazan in his somber robes, Imperial Astrologer Unkovskii—and the rest. Doubtless the Little Father would let his children know his purpose in his own good time.
“Eyes front!” Dimitri whispered, for the third or fourth time. Tasha was always a fidget, fingers working endlessly in her lap; today she kept stealing glances sideways along the row, past her brother, past Prince Grigori and his dumpy wife, to where young Vasili loomed like a mountain.
When Grigori had proposed the match, he had admitted he was out of favor and Dimitri would be taking a risk by agreeing, but the Ovtsyn lands were enormous, especially around Sprensk, where the family controlled possibly the largest single estate in Skyrria still in private hands. Young Vasili would have been an acceptable brother-in-law—not the brightest planet in the sky and handsome only in that he was young and virile, but solid and predictable. He had been enough for Tasha, who had not touched the ground since she learned of the proposal. She had seen herself as one of the richest women in the land, with twice as much husband as any other.
Now Sophie had said no, and Dimitri realized that he should have consulted her sooner, but it was hard for a man to seek advice from a woman, and she was not just his sister but his younger sister. He had reared her.
“Imperial Astrologer!” said the Czar.
Ancient Boyar Unkovskii rose from his seat on the sidelines, tottered forward, and prostrated himself unsteadily.
“What do the stars foretell for this day?”
With a long, wavering howl, the old man sat back on his heels, and raised his arms high. He could always be counted on for an impressive performance. “Most puissant Czar, whose greatness shines manifestly in the heavens themselves, hear what the planets declare!—Tidings, Your Majesty, great tidings! Tidings of evil unmasked, tidings of great joy to come, and tidings of our beloved Czar’s mercy and love to all his children.”
The hall buzzed as people tried to make sense of that. A few years ago Dimitri would have been concerned, too, but Sophie had disillusioned him since she came to Court. It wasn’t his eyes on the heavens that made Unkovskii the Czar’s favorite, she said, but his ear to the ground. Shocked, Dimitri had taken note and seen that she was right; the old man’s prophecies always gave Igor what he wanted.
“Dire evil may be exposed, Mighty Czar!” the astrologer bleated. “But also tidings of great rejoicing!”
He was dismissed; a herald helped him rise and stagger back to his seat.
Igor seemed to reflect, his face revealing nothing. After a few moments, he shook his head sadly and barked, “Prince Grigori!”
The prince rose and walked forward to kneel and touch his face to the floor. Then he sat back on his heels with gray head high and white beard thrust forward, waiting to hear his fate.
“Prince,” said the Czar, “you have caused us grievous loss. Your men attacked a company of our noble streltsy near Suzdena and took a great toll of them. Why do you not keep your rabble under control?”
“Most Glorious Majesty, I have been misinformed on the events. Pray reveal to us the truth of the affair.” That was as close as anyone dared come to calling the Czar an outright liar.
Igor’s eyes narrowed. “My men were passing by. Your brigands ambushed them, overcame them by sheer weight of numbers, and slaughtered several. Then they ran amok, torching houses, murdering and raping. It is fortunate that my men were able to rally and restore order, or you might well be facing charges of high treason right now.”
Ovtsyn must feel the chill touch of the executioner’s ax measuring his neck, but his voice was still strong enough to carry throughout the hall. “Most lenient, loved, and merciful Czar, those responsible mistook your men for mere brigands. They have felt your just anger and paid for their error. How may I make recompense for my negligence in not keeping my serfs better supervised?” How much will you take this time?
Igor scowled as if he had hoped to play longer with his victim. “You have lands around Sprensk.”
The prince flinched. A horrible wail from his wife suggested instant poverty. Big Vasili tried to hush her.
Ovtsyn blurted out: “Your Majesty—” Then sanity prevailed. Whatever pittance he was being left with would still be better than a grave. His shoulders slumped. Hoarsely he gabbled, “I gladly give them to Your Imperial Majesty as a token of my love and repentance.” His wife wailed again.
“Chief Boyar Skuratov will assess them to see if they suffice.”
“Your Imperial Majesty is the most merciful of rulers.” Ovtsyn lowered his forehead to the floor in submission.
“Your daughter we return to you.”
“Your Majesty is most gracious.”
“But now we have questions for your son.”
“My heir?”
“Let him come forward.”
Big Vasili detached himself from his mother, and strode forth. He took his time kneeling down beside his father, and waited a deliberate moment before lowering his face to the tiles.
“Up! Right up! On your feet.”
The boy rose. Like a pillar. He held the Czar’s gaze, which was deliberate insolence; the assembly held its breath.
“You, too, Prince.” The Czar scowled as Grigori scrambled up. His head did not reach his son’s shoulder. “How is this? How does a pony like you sire a warhorse like that? Did your wife cuckold you with some serf, or is this witchcraft?”
The congregation moaned in horror.
“Oh, most merciful lord!” Grigori cried, his former confidence shattered. “Yes, there was witchcraft!” The audience gasped in unison and the archers raised their bows. “But it was long ago, Your Majesty, in your blessed grandfather’s reign. It was directed against me. My forebears were all big men…my father, my uncles…I was a sickly infant, Your Majesty. My back is crooked, as you can see. The witches were caught and burned, but too late to save me. It has nothing to do with Vasili.”
The Czar fingered his knout, as if considering whether to send one Ovtsyn to the stake, or both. “Very well. You may withdraw. Your freakish son may be of use.”
Grigori backed away, bowing, until he could crumple down between his wife and Dimitri. He seemed a lot smaller than he had a few minutes earlier. The Czar sat scowling at the prince’s son.
Vasili was swarthy, with heav
y black tresses dangling under his fur cap down to his huge shoulders, but for a barely-bearded youth he was displaying remarkable courage. Dimitri was pleased to see his favorable judgment of the lad being vindicated. It no longer mattered, of course.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Vasili Ovtsyn, Your Majesty.”
“That name is disgraced. From now on you will be just Vasili.”
Vasili-the-serf balled enormous fists, but spoke calmly. “As Your Majesty commands.”
“I heard tell of a giant leading the brigands at Suzdena.”
There was a pause, as if the boy contemplated his future and decided he had nothing left to lose. “I was helping defend my father’s people from a barbarous and unprovoked assault, sire.”
Igor glared. After a moment he said, “So?” disbelievingly.
And then nothing for a while. In the silence, the Princess Ovtsyn could be heard sobbing. Tasha’s fingers were digging into Dimitri’s arm.
“Voevode Viazemski?”
The one-armed man stepped out from the group at the side of the royal dais, came around to the front—but not too close to the hound—and went down on one knee. Viazemski was a convicted brigand, murderer, and rapist. It was said that Igor had stayed his death sentence and appointed him commander of the terrorists on the understanding that he would be hanged if he ever showed mercy to anyone.
“Your Majesty?”
“Here we have a bold defender who needs someone better to defend. Can you find a place for this lad, Voevode?”
“Sire, I’m sure I can make room if I move three or four out of the way.” Viazemski was the only man in Skyrria who dared make jokes near the Czar.
“Then, boy, you will be privileged to serve us and expunge your shame.” Igor gestured to the dais before him. “Sit there.”
Vasili walked forward to perch on the edge of the platform, carefully not turning his back on the autocrat, but still not visibly cowed.
“Closer,” said the Czar.
Vasili slid closer.