OLGA WAS IN MARYA’S CHAMBER, watching over the child’s sleep. The marks of long strain shadowed the girl’s pale, pinched face. She had taken on too great a labor too young, and Olga looked scarcely less weary.
Vasya halted in the doorway, suddenly unsure of her welcome.
The bed was covered in feather-stuffed ticking, with furs and woven wool. For a moment, Vasya wanted to be a child again, to fall into bed beside Marya and go to sleep while her sister stroked her hair. But Olga turned at Vasya’s soft-footed approach, and the wish vanished. One could not go backward.
Vasya crossed the room, touched Marya’s cheek. “Will she be all right?” Vasya asked.
“She is only tired, I think,” said Olga.
“She was very brave,” said Vasya.
Olga smoothed her daughter’s hair and said nothing.
“Olya,” Vasya said awkwardly. All the composure she’d found in Dmitrii’s hall seemed to have deserted her. “I—I told you that you would meet him. If you wish.”
Olga frowned. “Him, Vasya?”
“You asked. He is here. Will you see him?”
Morozko did not wait for an answer, nor did he walk through the door like a person. He simply stepped out of the shadows. The domovoi had been sitting beside the stove; now he shot to his feet, bristling; Marya stirred in her sleep.
“I mean them no harm, little one,” said Morozko, speaking first to the domovoi.
Olga had lurched to her feet too; she was standing in front of Marya’s bed as though to defend her child from evil. Vasya, stiff with apprehension, suddenly saw the frost-demon as her sister did: a cold-eyed shadow. She began to doubt her own course. Morozko turned away from the domovoi, bowed to Olga.
“I know you,” Olga whispered. “Why have you come here?”
“Not for a life,” Morozko said. His voice was even, but Vasya felt him wary.
Olga said to Vasya, “I remember him. I remember. He took my daughter away.”
“No—he—” began Vasya, clumsily, and Morozko shot her a hard look. She subsided.
His face was unchanged, but his whole body was taut with strain. Vasya understood why. He’d wanted to go near enough to humanity to be remembered, so he could go on existing. But Vasya had pulled him nearer and nearer still, like a moth to a candle-flame. Now he must look at Olga, understand the torment in her eyes, and carry it with him down the long roads of his life.
He didn’t want to. But he didn’t move.
“It is little comfort,” Morozko said carefully. “But your elder daughter has a long life before her. And the younger—I will remember her.”
“You are a devil,” said Olga. “My little girl didn’t even have a name.”
“I will remember her regardless,” said the winter-king.
Olga stared at him a moment and then suddenly broke; her whole body bowed with grief. She put her face in her hands.
Vasya, feeling helpless, went to her sister, wrapped tentative arms about her. “Olya?” she said. “Olya, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Olga made no answer and Morozko stood where he was. He did not speak again.
There was a long silence. Olga took a deep breath. Her eyes were wet. “I never wept,” she said. “Not since the night I lost her.”
Vasya held her sister tightly.
Olga gently put Vasya’s arms aside. “Why my sister?” she asked Morozko. “Why, of all the women in the world?”
“For her blood,” said Morozko. “But later for her courage.”
“Have you anything to offer her?” Olga asked him. And, with an edge, “Besides whispers in the dark?”
Vasya bit back her sound of protest. If the question took Morozko aback, it didn’t show. “All the lands of winter,” he said. “The black trees and the silver frost. Gold and riches made by men; she may fill her hands with wealth, if she desires it.”
“Will you deny her the spring and the summer?”
“I will deny her nothing. But there are places she can go where I cannot easily follow.”
“He is not a man,” Olga said to Vasya, not taking her eyes off the winter-king. “He will not be a husband to you.”
Vasya bowed her head. “I have never wanted a husband. He came with me out of winter, for Moscow’s sake. It is enough.”
“And you think he won’t hurt you, in the end? Remember the dead girl in the fairy tale!”
“I am not she,” said Vasya.
“What if this—liaison means your damnation?”
“I am damned already,” Vasya said. “By every law of God and man. But I do not wish to be alone.”
Olga sighed and said sadly, “As you say, sister.” Abruptly, she said, “Very well. My blessing on you both—now send him away.”
* * *
VASYA FOLLOWED MOROZKO OUT. He even went through the door this time, in ordinary fashion. But when he was outside, he halted, head bowed, like a man after hard labor.
He managed to say to her through gritted teeth, “The bathhouse.” She took his hand and pulled him there with her, shut the door on darkness, forgot a candle wasn’t burning. Four flared up at once. He sank to one of the benches of the outer room and drew a shuddering breath. A bathhouse was a place of birth and of death, of transformation and of magic, and perhaps of memory. He could breathe easier there. But—
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. “I cannot stay,” he said instead. His eyes were pale as water, his hands locked together, the bones of them stark in the candlelight. “I cannot. It is not my time yet, here. I must go back to my own lands. I—” He broke off, then said, “I am winter, and have been too long separate from myself.”
“Is that the only reason?” she asked.
He wasn’t looking at her now. Forcibly, he relaxed his clenched hands, laid them on his knees. Almost inaudibly, he said, “I cannot learn any more names. It draws me too near—”
“Too near what? Mortality? Can you become mortal?” she asked.
He was taken aback. “How? I am not made of flesh. But it—tears at me.”
“Then it will always tear at you, I think,” said Vasya. “So long as we—unless—you forget me.”
He rose to his feet. “I have made that choice already,” he said. “But I must return to my own lands. You are not the only one who can be driven mad with impossibilities; I cannot endure this one anymore. I do not belong in the summertime world. Vasya, you have done all you must. Come with me.”
At his words, a bolt of longing tore through her, for blue skies and deep snow, for wild places and for silence, for his fire-lit house in the fir-grove, for his hands in the darkness. She could go with him, and leave all the doings of men behind her, leave this city that had cost Solovey his life.
But even as she thought it, she said, “I can’t. It isn’t over.”
“Your part in this is over. If Dmitrii fights the Tatars, then that is a war of men, and not of chyerti.”
“A war the Bear brought about!”
“A war that might have happened anyway,” retorted Morozko. “A war that’s been threatening for years.”
She put a hand to her cheek, where lay the scar from a stone flung as she was led to her death. “I know,” she said. “But I am Russian, and they are my people.”
“They put you in the fire,” said Morozko. “You owe them nothing. Come with me.”
“But—who will I be, if I go with you?” she demanded. “Just a snow-maiden, the winter-king’s bride, forgotten by the whole world, just like you!”
She saw him flinch at the words. Biting her lips, she asked, in a calmer voice, “Who am I, if I cannot help my people?”
“Your people are more than a single, ill-conceived battle.”
“You freed your brother because you thought I could keep the chyerti from fad
ing out of the world. Perhaps I can. But the other Rus’—the Rus’ of men and women—paid the price, and I am going to make it right again. The Bear’s mischief did not end with Moscow; my task is not over.”
“And if it gets you killed? Do you think I want to bear you away into the dark and then never see you again?”
“I know you don’t.” She dragged in a deep breath. “But I still have to try.”
For her sake, Morozko had made common cause with her brother, asked her sister’s forgiveness, gone into Moscow in summer, bound the Bear. But she had reached the limits of both his strength and his will. He would not fight Dmitrii’s war.
She would, though. Because she wanted to be more than a snow-maiden. She wanted Dmitrii’s faith, and his hand on her head. She wanted a victory, brought about by her courage.
But she also wanted the winter-king. In the smoke and dust and stink of Moscow, he was a breath of pine and cold water and stillness. She could not think for wanting him.
He saw her waver. Their eyes met in the darkness, and he closed the distance between them.
He wasn’t gentle. He was angry, and so was she, baffled and wanting, and their hands were rough on each other’s skin. When she kissed him, he felt like flesh under her hands, drawn sharply into reality by the place and the hour, and by her own passion. The silence stretched out, as their hands said the things they could not, and Vasya almost told him yes then. She almost let him carry her to his white horse, bear her away into the night. She didn’t want to think anymore.
But she must think. Tamara had let her own demon lull her with dreams of love until she’d lost everything that mattered.
She wasn’t Tamara. Vasya yanked away, gasping for breath, and he let her go.
“Go back to winter then,” she heard herself saying, her voice hoarse. “I am taking the road through Midnight to find my brother-in-law, if he is alive. I am going to help Dmitrii Ivanovich win his war.”
Morozko stood still. Slowly the anger and confusion and desire faded from his expression. “Vladimir Andreevich is alive,” he said only. “But I do not know where he is. Vasya—I cannot walk this road beside you.”
“I will find him,” said Vasya.
“You will find him,” Morozko said, with weary certainty. He bowed, remote, any feeling locked deep in his eyes. “Look for me at the first frost.”
He slipped out of the bathhouse like a wraith. She hurried to follow, angry still, but not wanting him to go like that, with a wound unhealed between them. She’d pitched him against his own nature, a foe that was too great.
He went out into the dooryard, and raised his face to the night. For an instant, the wind was the true deep wind of winter that freezes the breath in your nostrils.
Suddenly he turned back to her, and the feeling was there again in his face, as though he could not help it.
“Be well, and do not forget, Snegurochka,” he said.
“I will not. Morozko—”
He was only half there; the wind seemed to blow through him.
“As I could, I loved you too,” she whispered.
Their eyes met. Then he was gone, gone on the rising wind, blown through the wild air.
25.
The Road Through Darkness
SASHA AND VASYA LEFT JUST before midnight.
“I am sorry,” Sasha said to Olga before they left. “For what I said, at our last parting.”
Olga almost smiled, but the corners of her mouth turned down. “I was angry too. You’d think I’d be used to farewells, brother.”
“If it goes ill for us in the south,” said Sasha, “you mustn’t stay in Moscow. Take the children to Lesnaya Zemlya.”
“I know,” said the Princess of Serpukhov, and brother and sister exchanged grim glances. Olga had lived through three sieges; Sasha had been fighting Dmitrii’s battles since the two were scarcely out of boyhood.
Watching them, Vasya was reminded, uncomfortably, that though she had seen much, she had never seen war.
“Go with God, both of you,” said Olga.
Vasya and Sasha slipped out of Moscow. Below the gate, the posad slept. The swift, cold wind had driven out the reek of sickness. At least the dead would lie quiet.
Vasya led her brother into the woods, to the same place where Varvara had first sent her through Midnight—how long ago had it been? Two seasons had passed in Rus’ since that night, but Vasya had lost count of the days she’d lived herself.
Somewhere in Moscow, a bell rang. The city walls loomed white beyond the trees. Vasya took her brother’s hand. It was midnight. The darkness took on a wilder texture: a new menace and a deeper beauty. She stepped forward, pulling her brother with her. “Think of our cousin,” she said. One step, two, and then Sasha let out a soft, shocked breath.
Moscow was gone. They stood in a sparse elm-copse, dry and warm. There was dust instead of mud between Vasya’s bare toes, and the big late-summer stars hung low overhead. A different midnight.
“Mother of God,” Sasha whispered. “These are the woods near Serpukhov.”
“I told you,” said Vasya. “It is a swift road, but—” She broke off.
The black stallion Voron emerged from between two trees. His rider’s morning-star eyes glowed in the darkness.
Sasha’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. Perhaps the country of Midnight had wakened something in his blood, for he could see horse and rider. “That is Lady Midnight,” said Vasya, not taking her eyes off the chyert. “This is her realm.” She inclined her head.
Sasha crossed himself. Polunochnitsa smiled at him, mocking, and slid down from her horse’s back.
“God be with you,” Sasha said, cautiously.
“I certainly hope not,” returned Polunochnitsa. Voron tossed his black head, his ears set unhappily. Turning to Vasya, Midnight said, “In my realm again? And proud of your victory?”
“We did win,” Vasya said, wary.
“No,” said Midnight. “You didn’t. What do you think the real battle is, you arrogant fool? You never understood, did you?”
Vasya said nothing.
Between her teeth, Midnight said, “We hoped—I hoped—that you were different. That you would break their endless round of revenge and imprisonment. But you encouraged their war, those idiot twins.”
“What are you talking about?” Vasya demanded. “We saved Moscow from the dead. I do not know why you are angry. He is wicked, the Bear. Wicked. Now he is bound. Rus’ is safe.”
“Is it?” Midnight asked. “You still don’t understand.” Fury and disgust and—disappointment—snapped in her eyes. “You cannot rule the chyerti, or keep the house by the lake, or save us from fading out of life. You failed. The way to the lake is shut to you; I am shutting it, and risking the old woman’s wrath. She will have no heir. Farewell, Vasilisa Petrovna.”
Then she was gone fast as she’d appeared, a whirl of pale hair, vaulting to Voron’s back. The last Vasya heard of her was the sound of fading hoofbeats. Shaken, Vasya stared at the place where she’d been. Sasha looked merely puzzled. “What did that mean?”
“I do not understand why she is angry,” said Vasya. But she was uneasy. “We have to go on. Follow me close. We must not be separated.”
They walked cautiously, for Vasya feared Midnight’s anger, in this place of her power. Sasha followed her, starting at shadows, bewildered by the changing nights. But still he followed her. He trusted her.
Vasya blamed herself, later.
26.
The Golden Horde
THEY HAD NO WARNING. THEY saw no gleam from far off, heard no noise. They merely stepped suddenly from darkness, into firelight filled with laughter.
For an instant, they both froze.
The revelers froze too. Vasya had a brief impression of weapons: curved swords and short bows unstrung. She could smell horses
, see the shine of their eyes, watching from beyond the firelight.
All around them, men sprang to their feet. They weren’t speaking Russian. It sounded like the words she’d heard once on a dark winter night when she’d rescued girls from—from—
“Get back!” Vasya said to Sasha. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed pale hair, Midnight’s set, triumphant face. She thought she heard a whisper: “Learn or die, Vasilisa Petrovna.”
Swords in a dozen men’s hands. Her brother’s sword reflected the firelight when he drew it. “Tatars!” Sasha snapped. “Vasya, go.”
“No!” She was still trying to pull him back. “No, we must only walk back into Midnight—” But the men were closing in around them; she could not see the Midnight-road. “Vasya,” said Sasha in a voice more terrible for its calm, “I am a monk; they will not kill me. But you…Run. Run!” He drove himself at the men, knocking them aside. She backed away from the melee, willed the campfire into a sudden storm of light. The renewed fire drove the Tatars back just as her brother’s sword met another, sparking.
There was the Midnight-road, just beyond the light. The fire flared again, frightening the men, and she called, “Sasha, this way—”
Or started to say. For the hilt of a sword caught her on the temple, and the world went dark.
* * *
SASHA, SEEING HIS SISTER FALL, dropped his sword and said, in Tatar, to the man who had struck her down, “I am a man of God, and that is my servant. Do not hurt him.”
“Indeed, you are a man of God,” returned the Tatar. He spoke Russian, lightly accented. “You are Aleksandr Peresvet. But this is not your servant.”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but Sasha could not see the Tatar’s face. The man stood over Vasya, on the other side of the fire, and pulled the girl upright. Her eyelids fluttered; a gash across her forehead poured a maze of blood across her face.
“This is your witch of a sister,” said the Tatar. He sounded both pleased and mystified. “How came you both here? Spying for Dmitrii? Why would he spend his cousins, so?”
The Winter of the Witch Page 26