17.

Marya the Pirate

Vasya’s room in the men’s quarters was small, but warm and far cleaner than anything in Dmitrii’s palace. Some wine had been kept hot on the oven beside a little stack of butter-cakes, only a little gnawed by an adventurous mouse.

Sasha brought her to the threshold, said “God be with you,” and left.

Vasya sank onto the bed. The sounds of Moscow in festival filtered in through her slitted window. She had ridden all day every day for weeks on end, endured both battle and sickness, and was bone-weary. Vasya bolted the door, cast off cloak and boots, ate and drank without tasting, and climbed beneath the mound of fur coverlets.

Though the blankets were heavy and the stove sent out steady warmth, still she shook and could not fall asleep. Again and again she tasted the lies on her own tongue, heard Father Konstantin’s deep, plausible voice telling her brother and sister a tale that was—almost—true. Again she heard the bandit-captain’s war-cry and saw his sword flash in the moonlight. Moscow’s noise and its glitter bewildered her; she did not know what was true.

Eventually Vasya drifted off. She awoke with a jolt, in the still hour after midnight. The air had a thick tang of wet wool and incense, and Vasya stared bewildered into the midnight rafters, longing for a breath of the clean winter wind.

Then her breath stilled in her throat. Somewhere, someone was weeping.

Weeping and walking, the sound was coming nearer. Sobs like needles stabbed through the palace of Serpukhov.

Vasya, frowning, got to her feet. She heard no footsteps, just the gasp and choke of tears.

Nearer.

Who was crying? Vasya heard no sound of feet, no rustle of clothes. A woman crying. What woman would come here? This was the men’s half of the house.

Nearer.

The weeper paused, right outside her door.

Vasya nearly ceased to breathe. Thus the dead had come back to Lesnaya Zemlya, crying, begging to be taken in out of the cold. Nonsense, there are no dead here. The Bear is bound.

Vasya gathered her courage, drew her ice-knife to be cautious, crossed the room, and opened the door a crack.

A face stared back at her, right up against the doorframe: a pale, curious face with a grinning mouth.

You, it gobbled. Get out, go—

Vasya slammed the door and flung herself backward to the bed, heart hammering. Some pride—or some instinct of silence—buried her scream, though her breath snarled in and out.

She had not bolted the door, and slowly it creaked open.

No—now there was nothing there. Only shadows, a trickle of moonlight. What was that? Ghost? Dream? God be with me.

Vasya watched a long time, but nothing moved, no sound marred the darkness. At length, she gathered her courage, got up, crossed the room, and shut the door.

It was a long time before she fell asleep again.

VASILISA PETROVNA AWOKE ON the first day of Maslenitsa, stiff and hungry, remorseful and rebellious, to find a pair of large dark eyes hanging over her.

Vasya blinked and gathered her feet beneath her, wary as a wolf.

“Hello,” the owner of the eyes said archly. “Aunt. I am Marya Vladimirovna.”

Vasya gaped at the child, and then tried for an older brother’s outraged dignity. She still had her hair tied up in a hood. “This is improper,” she said stiffly. “I am your uncle Vasilii.”

“No, you’re not,” said Marya. She stepped back and crossed her arms. Her little boots were embroidered with scarlet foxes, and a band of silk hung with silver rings set off her dark hair. Her face was white as milk, her eyes like holes burned in snow. “I crept in after Varvara yesterday. I heard Mother telling Uncle Sasha everything.” She looked Vasya up and down, a finger in her mouth. “You are my ugly aunt Vasilisa,” she added, with a fair attempt at insouciance. “I am prettier than you.”

Marya might well have been called pretty, in the unformed way of children, were she not so pale, so drawn.

“Indeed you are,” Vasya said, torn between amusement and dismay. “But not as pretty as Yelena the Beautiful, who was stolen by the Gray Wolf. Yes, I am your aunt Vasilisa, but that is a great secret. Can you keep a secret, Masha?”

Marya lifted her chin and sat down on the bench by the stove, taking care with her skirts. “I can keep a secret,” she said. “I want to be a boy, too.”

Vasya decided it was too early in the morning for this conversation. “But what would your mother say,” she asked, a little desperately, “if she lost her little daughter, Masha?”

“She wouldn’t care,” retorted Marya. “She wants sons. Besides,” she went on, with bravado, “I have to leave the palace.”

“Your mother may want sons,” Vasya conceded. “But she wants you, too. Why must you leave the palace?”

Marya swallowed. For the first time, her air of jaunty courage deserted her. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“I probably would.”

Marya looked down at her hands. “The ghost is going to eat me,” she whispered.

Vasya lifted a brow. “The ghost?”

Marya nodded. “Nurse says I mustn’t tell tales and worry my mother. I try not. But I am scared.” Her voice faded away on the last word. “The ghost is always waiting for me, just as I fall asleep. I know she means to eat me. So I have to leave the palace,” said Marya, with an air of renewed determination. “Let me be a boy with you, or I’ll tell everyone that you’re really a girl.” She delivered her threat with ferocity, but shrank back when Vasya rolled out of bed.

Vasya knelt before the little girl. “I believe you,” she said mildly. “I have also seen this ghost. I saw it last night.”

Marya stared. “Were you scared?” she asked at length.

“Yes,” said Vasya. “But I think the ghost was scared, too.”

“I hate her!” Marya burst out. “I hate the ghost. She won’t leave me alone.”

“Perhaps we should ask her what she wants, next time,” said Vasya thoughtfully.

“She doesn’t listen,” said Marya. “I tell her to go away, and she doesn’t listen.”

Vasya considered her niece. “Masha, do you ever see other things that your family doesn’t?”

Marya looked warier than ever. “No,” she said.

Vasya waited.

The child looked down. “There is a man in the bathhouse,” she said. “And a man in the oven. They scare me. Mother told me I must not tell such stories, or no prince will wish to marry me. She—she was angry.”

Vasya remembered, vividly, her own helpless confusion when told the world she saw was a world that did not exist. “The man in the bathhouse is real, Masha,” Vasya said sharply. She took the child by the shoulders. “You must not be afraid of him. He guards your family. He has many kin: one to guard the dooryard, another for the stable, another for the hearth. They keep wicked things at bay. They are as real as you are. You must never doubt your own senses, and you must not fear the things you see.”

Marya’s brow creased. “You see them, too? Aunt?”

“I do,” Vasya returned. “I will show you.” A pause. “If you promise not to tell anyone I am a girl.”

A light had come into the little girl’s face. She thought for a moment. Then, every inch a princess, Marya returned, “I swear it.”

“Very well,” said Vasya. “Let me get dressed.”

THE SUN HAD NOT risen; the world was subtle and flattened and gray. A sweet and waiting hush lay over Moscow. Only the spiraling smoke moved, dancing alone, veiling the city as though with love. The dooryards and staircases of Olga’s palace were quiet; its kitchens and bakeries, breweries and smokehouses just stirring.

Vasya’s eye found the bakery unerringly. The air smelled marvelously of breakfast.

She thought of bread, smeared with cheese, and then she gulped, and had to hasten after Marya, who was running straight down the screened-in walkway to the bathhouse.

Vasya seized the girl by the back of her cloak an instant before she grabbed the latch. “Look to see if there is no one there,” said Vasya, exasperated. “Has no one ever told you to think before you do things?”

Marya squirmed. “No,” she said. “They tell me not to do things. But then I want to and I can’t help it. Sometimes nurse turns purple—that is best.” She shrugged, and the straight shoulders drooped. “But sometimes mother tells me she is afraid for me. I do not like that.” Marya rallied and hauled herself free of her aunt’s grip. She pointed to the chimney. “No smoke—it is empty.”

Vasya squeezed the girl’s hand, lifted the latch, and they stepped into the chill dark. Marya hid behind Vasya, clinging to her cloak.

Her bath the day before had been too rushed for Vasya to take note of her surroundings, but now she gazed appreciatively at the embroidered cushions, the glossy oak benches. The bathhouse at Lesnaya Zemlya had been strictly functional. Then she said into the dimness, “Banchik. Master. Grandfather. Will you speak to us?”

Silence. Marya poked a cautious head around Vasya’s cloak. Their breath steamed in the chill.

Then—“There,” said Vasya.

Even as she said it, she frowned.

She might have been pointing to a wisp of steam, fire-lit. But if you turned your head just so, an old man sat there, cross-legged on a cushion, his head to one side. He was smaller even than Marya, with cloudy threads of hair and strange, faraway eyes.

“That is him!” said Marya, squeaking.

Vasya said nothing. The bannik was even fainter than that other bannik in Chudovo, fainter far than the weeping domovoi in Katya’s village. Little more than steam and ember-light. Vasya’s blood had revived the chyerti of Lesnaya Zemlya, when Konstantin terrified her people into casting them out. But this kind of fading seemed both less violent and harder to halt.

It is going to end, Vasya thought. One day. This world of wonders, where steam in a bathhouse can be a creature that speaks prophecy. One day, there will be only bells and processions. The chyerti will be fog and memory and stirrings in the summer barley.

Her mind went to Morozko, the winter-king, who shaped the frost to his will. No. He could not fade.

Vasya shook away her thoughts, went to the water bucket and poured out a ladleful. She had a crust in her pocket, which she laid, along with a birch-branch from the corner, in front of the living wisp.

The bannik solidified a little more.

Marya gasped.

Vasya tapped her niece’s shoulder and pried the child’s hands off her cloak. “Come, he will not hurt you. You must be respectful. This is the bannik. Call him Grandfather, for that is what he is, or Master, for that is his title. You must give him birch-branches and hot water and bread. Sometimes he tells the future.”

Marya pursed her rosebud mouth, and then she made a most stately reverence, only a little wobbling. “Grandfather,” she whispered.

The bannik did not speak.

Masha took a hesitant step forward and proffered a slightly squashed crumb of cake.

The bannik smiled slowly. Marya quivered but did not move. The bannik took the cake in his foggy hands. “So you do see me,” he whispered, in the hiss of water on coals. “It has been a long time.”

“I see you,” said Marya. She crowded nearer, forgetting fear in the way of children. “Of course I see you. You never talked before though, why not? Mother said you weren’t real. I was scared. Will you tell the future? Who am I going to marry?”

A dour prince, as soon as you have bled, Vasya thought darkly. “Enough, Masha,” she said aloud. “Come away. You do not need prophecies—you aren’t going to marry yet.”

The chyert smiled with a ghost of wickedness. “Why shouldn’t she? Vasilisa Petrovna, you have had your prophecy already.”

Vasya said nothing. The bannik at Lesnaya Zemlya had told her that she would pluck snowdrops at midwinter, die at her own choosing, and weep for a nightingale. “I was grown when I heard it,” she said at last. “Masha is a child.”

The bannik smiled, showing its foggy teeth. “Here is your prophecy, Marya Vladimirovna,” he said. “I am only a wisp now, for your people put their faith in bells and in painted icons. But this little I know: you will grow up far away, and you will love a bird more than your mother, after the season has turned.”

Vasya stiffened. Marya went very red. “A bird…?” she whispered. Then—“Never! You’re wrong!” She clenched her fists. “Take that back.”

The bannik shrugged, still smiling with a little edge of malice.

“Take it back!” Marya shrilled. “Take it—”

But the bannik had turned his glance on Vasya, and something hard gleamed in the backs of his burning eyes. “Before the end of Maslenitsa,” he said. “We will all be watching.”

Vasya, angry on Marya’s behalf, said, “I do not understand you.”

But she was addressing an empty corner. The bannik was gone.

Marya looked stricken. “I don’t like him. Was he telling the truth?”

“It is prophecy,” Vasya said slowly. “It might be true, but not at all in the way you think.”

Then, because the girl’s lower lip quivered, her dark eyes big and lost, Vasya said, “It is early still. Shall we go riding, you and I?”

A sunrise dawned on Masha’s face. “Yes,” she said at once. “Oh, yes, please. Let’s go now.”

A certain furtive giddiness made it clear that galloping about the streets was not something Marya was allowed to do. Vasya wondered if she had made a mistake. But she also remembered how, as a small child, she had loved to ride with her brother, face against the wind.

“Come with me,” said Vasya. “You must stay very close.”

They crept out of the bathhouse. The morning had lightened from smoke to pigeon-gray, and the thick blue shadows had begun to retreat.

Vasya tried to stride along like a bold boy, though it was hard since Marya kept such a tight hold of her hand. For all her ferocity, Marya only ever left her father’s palace to go to church, surrounded by her mother’s women. Even walking about in the dooryard unchaperoned had the flavor of rebellion.

Solovey stood bright-eyed in his paddock, snuffing the morning. Vasya thought for a moment that a long-limbed creature with a tuft of beard sat combing the horse’s mane. But then the monastery bells all rang outrenya together; Vasya blinked and there was no one.

“Oh,” said Marya, skidding to a halt. “Is that your horse? He is very big.”

“Yes,” said Vasya. “Solovey, this is my niece, who wishes to ride you.”

“I don’t much want to, now,” said Marya, looking at the stallion with alarm.

Solovey had a fondness for scraps of humanity—or maybe he was just puzzled by creatures so much smaller than he. He minced over to the fence, snorted a warm breath into her face, then put his head down and lipped Marya’s fingers.

“Oh,” said Marya, in a new voice. “Oh, he is very soft.” She stroked his nose.

Solovey’s ears went back and forth, pleased, and Vasya smiled.

Tell her not to kick me, Solovey said. He nibbled Marya’s hair, which made her giggle. Or pull my mane.

Vasya relayed this message and boosted Marya up onto the top of the fence.

“He needs a saddle,” the child informed Vasya nervously, clutching the fence rail. “I have watched my father’s men ride out; they all have saddles.”

“Solovey doesn’t like them,” Vasya retorted. “Get up. I will not let you fall. Or are you scared?”

Marya put her nose in the air. Clumsy in her skirts, she swung a leg over and sat down, plop, on the horse’s withers. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

But she squeaked and clutched at the horse when he sighed and shifted his weight. Vasya grinned, climbed the fence, and settled in behind her niece.

“How are we going to get out?” Marya asked practically. “You didn’t open the gate.” Then she gasped. “Oh!”

Behind her, Vasya was laughing. “Hang on to his mane,” she said. “But try not to pull it.”

Marya said nothing, but two small hands took a death grip on the mane. Solovey wheeled. Marya was breathing very quickly. Vasya leaned forward.

The child squealed when the horse took off: one galloping stride, two, three, and then with a tremendous thrust the horse was up and over the fence, light as a leaf.

When they landed, Marya was laughing. “Again!” she cried. “Again!”

“When we return,” Vasya promised. “We have a city to see.”

Leaving was surprisingly simple. Vasya concealed Marya in her cloak, staying a little in the shadows, and the gate-guard leaped to draw the bar. Their business was keeping people out, after all.

Outside the prince of Serpukhov’s gates, the city was just stirring. The sound and smell of frying cakes laced the morning silence. A group of small boys were playing on a snow-slide in the violet dawn, before the bigger boys came to sweep them aside.

Marya watched them as they rode past. “Gleb and Slava were making a snow-slide in our dooryard yesterday,” she said. “Nurse says I am too old for sliding. But Mother says perhaps.” The child sounded wistful. “Can’t we play on this slide here?”

“I don’t think your mother would like it,” Vasya said, with regret.

Above them, the rim of sun, like a ring of copper, showed its edge above the kremlin-wall. It coaxed color from all the brilliant churches, so that the gray light fled and the world glowed green and scarlet and blue.

A glow kindled also in Marya’s face, lit by the new sun. Not the savage exuberance of the child racing around inside her mother’s tower, but a quieter, more joyful thing. The sun set diamonds in her dark eyes, and she drank in all they saw.

Solovey walked and trotted and loped through the waking city. Down they went, past bakers and brewers and inns and sledges. They passed an outdoor oven, where a woman was frying butter-cakes. Obeying hungry impulse, Vasya slid to the ground. Solovey approved of cakes; he followed her hopefully.

The cook, without taking her eyes from the fire, poked her spoon at the stallion’s questing nose. Solovey jerked back indignantly and only just remembered that rearing would unseat his small passenger.

“None of that,” the cook told the stallion. She shook her spoon for emphasis. The top of his withers was well over her head. “I’ll wager you’d eat the whole pile if you could, a great thing like you.”

Vasya hid a smile, said, “Forgive him; your cakes smell so good,” and proceeded to buy an enormous, greasy stack.

Mollified, the cook pressed a few more on them—“You could use fattening, young lord. Don’t let that child eat too many”—and, with an air of great condescension, even fed Solovey a cake out of her own hand.

Solovey held no grudges; he lipped it up gently and nosed over her kerchief until the cook laughed and shoved him away.

Vasya mounted again and the two girls ate as they rode, smearing themselves with grease. Every now and again Solovey would put his head around, hopefully, and Marya would feed him a piece. They went along slowly, watching the city come awake.

When the walls of the kremlin heaved up before them, Marya craned forward, openmouthed, bracing her two buttery hands on Solovey’s neck. “I’ve only seen them from far away,” she said. “I didn’t know how big they are.”

“I didn’t either,” Vasya admitted. “Until yesterday. Let’s go closer.”

The girls passed through the gate, and now it was Vasya’s turn to draw a wondering breath. On the great open square outside the kremlin gates, they were putting up a market. Merchants set up their stalls while men bellowed greetings and blew on their hands. Their brats ran about, calling like starlings.

“Oh,” said Marya, her glance darting here and there. “Oh, look, there are combs there! And cloth! Bone needles, and saddles!”

All that and more. They passed sellers of cakes and wine, of precious wood and vessels of silver, of wax, wool, taffeta, and preserved lemons. Vasya bought one of the lemons, smelled it with delight, bit into it, gasped, and handed the thing hurriedly to Marya.

“You don’t eat it; you put a bit into the soup,” said Marya, smelling the thing cheerfully. “They must travel for a year and a day to get here. Uncle Sasha told me.”

The child was peering about her with a squirrel’s eager interest. “The green cloth!” she would call. Or—“Look, that comb is made like a sleeping cat!”

Vasya, still regretting the lemon, caught sight of a herd of horses penned on the south side of the square. She nudged Solovey over for a look.

A mare bugled at the stallion. Solovey arched his neck and looked pleased. “So now you want a harem, do you?” Vasya asked under her breath.

The horse-drover, staring, said, “Young lord, you cannot bring that stud so close; he will have my beasts in an uproar.”

“My horse is standing quiet,” said Vasya, trying to approximate a rich boyar’s arrogance. “What yours do is not my concern.” But his horses were certainly getting restive, and she backed Solovey off, considering the mares. They were all much alike, save the one who had called to Solovey. She was a chestnut, jauntily stockinged and taller than the others.

“I like that one,” said Marya, pointing at the chestnut.

Vasya did, too. A swift, mad thought had come to her—buy a horse? Until she’d left home, she had never bought anything in her life. But she had a handful of silver in her pocket and a newborn confidence warming her blood. “I wish to see that filly there,” Vasya said.

The horse-drover’s eye rested with doubt on the slender boy.

Vasya sat haughtily, waiting.

“As you say, Gospodin,” muttered the man. “At once.”

The chestnut mare was led forth, fretting at the end of a rope. The horse-drover trotted her back and forth through the snow. “Sound,” he said. “Just rising three year, a war-horse to make a hero of any man.”

The mare lifted first one foot, then the next. Vasya wanted to go to her, touch her, consider her legs, her teeth, but she did not want to leave Marya alone and exposed on Solovey’s back.

Hello, said Vasya to the mare instead.

The mare put her feet down; her ears went forward. Frightened, then, but not without common sense. Hello? she said tentatively. She put out a questing nose.

The sound of new hoofbeats echoed from the arch of the kremlin-gate. The mare jerked back, half-rearing. The horse-drover drew her down with a curse and sent her curvetting back into the pen.

Vasya, said Solovey.

Vasya turned. Three men came thudding into the square, riding broad-chested horses. They moved in a wedge; their leader wore a round hat, and an air of elegant authority. Chelubey, Vasya thought. Leader of bandits, so-called ambassador of the Khan.

Chelubey turned his head; his horse checked a stride. Then all three riders changed direction and made straight for the horse-pen. Chelubey shouted apologies in terrible Russian as they bulled through the crowd. Awed and angry faces turned to follow the Tatar’s progress.

The sun had risen higher. Cool white flames kindled in the ice of the river, and lights darted from the riders’ jewels.

Vasya pulled her cloak forward to conceal the child. “Be quiet,” she whispered. “We have to go.” She nudged Solovey into a casual walk toward the kremlin-gate. Masha sat still, though Vasya could feel her heart beating fast.

They should have moved quicker. The three riders fanned out with perfect skill, and suddenly Solovey was boxed in. The stallion reared, angrily. Vasya brought him down, holding tight to her niece. The riders reined their horses with skill that brought a murmur from the onlookers.

Chelubey rode his stocky mare with elegant composure, smiling. Something in his easy-seeming authority reminded her of Dmitrii; in that moment Chelubey was so unlike the furious swordsman from the darkness that she thought she’d been mistaken.

“In haste?” Chelubey said to Vasya, with a most graceful bow. His glance went to Marya, half hidden and squirming in Vasya’s cloak. He looked amused. “I would not dream of detaining you. But I believe I have seen your horse before.”

“I am Vasilii Petrovich,” Vasya replied, inclining her head stiffly in turn. “I cannot imagine where you could have seen my horse. I must be going.”

Solovey started off. But Chelubey’s two men put hands to blades and blocked his way.

Vasya turned back, trying for nonchalance, but she was beginning to be frightened. “Let me pass,” she said. Movement had all but ceased in the square. The sun was rising quickly; soon the streets would become crowded. She and Masha must get back, and in the meantime she did not care at all for the Tatar’s look of smiling threat.

“I am quite sure,” said Chelubey meditatively, “that I have seen that horse before. One glance and I knew him.” He pretended to think. “Ah,” he said, flicking a speck off his gorgeous sleeve. “It comes to me. A forest, late at night. Curiously, I met a stallion there, that had gotten loose. A stallion twin to yours.”

The wide, dark eyes fastened on hers, and Vasya knew that she was not mistaken.

“You say it was dark,” Vasya returned at length. “It is hard to know a horse again, that you have only seen in the dark. You must have seen some other—this one is mine.”

“I know what I saw,” said Chelubey. He was looking at her very hard. “As do you, I think, boy.”

His men nudged their horses nearer. He knows I know, Vasya thought. This is his warning.

Solovey was bigger than the Tatar horses, and likely quicker; he could bull through. But the men had bows, and there was Masha to think of…

“I will buy your horse,” said Chelubey.

Surprise startled a thoughtless answer from her. “For what purpose?” she demanded. “He wouldn’t carry you. I am the only one who can ride him.”

The Tatar smiled a little. “Oh, he would carry me. Eventually.”

Inside the cloak, Marya made a sound of muffled protest. “No,” Vasya said, loud enough for the square to hear. Anger allowed only one answer. “No, you can’t buy him. Not for anything.”

Her answer rippled out through the merchants, and she saw the faces change, some shocked, some approving.

The Tatar’s grin widened—and she realized with horror that he had counted on her reaction—that she had just given him a perfect excuse to draw his sword on her now and apologize later to Dmitrii. But before Chelubey could move, a loud voice came grumbling up from the direction of the river. “Mother of God,” it said. “Can a man not go for a gallop without having to shove his way through the hordes of Moscow? Stand aside there—”

Chelubey’s smile faded. Vasya’s cheeks burned.

Kasyan came magnificently through the crowd, dressed in green, riding his big-boned gelding. He looked between Vasya and the Tatars. “Is it necessary to bait children, my lord Chelubey?” he asked.

Chelubey shrugged. “What else is there to do in this mud-hole of a city—Kasyan Lutovich, was it?”

Something about the easy rhythm of his reply made Vasya uneasy. Kasyan nudged his gelding up beside Vasya and said coolly, “The boy is coming with me. His cousin will be wanting him.”

Chelubey glanced left and right. The crowd was silent, but obviously on Kasyan’s side. “I do not doubt it,” he said, bowing. “When you wish to sell, boy, I have a purse of gold for you.”

Vasya shook her head, her eyes not leaving his.

“Better you take it,” added the Tatar, low. “If you do, I will not hold debt between us.” Still he smiled, but in his eyes was a clear and uncompromising threat.

Then—“Come on,” said Kasyan impatiently. His horse cut around the other riders and made for the kremlin-gate.

Vasya did not know what possessed her then. Angrily, swiftly, with the morning sunshine in her eyes, she set Solovey straight at the nearest rider’s horse. One stride, and the man realized what she meant to do; he flung himself swearing out of the saddle, and next instant Solovey was soaring straight over his horse’s back. Vasya held Marya tight with both hands. Solovey landed like a bird, and caught up with Kasyan.

Vasya turned back. The man had gotten to his feet, smeared with muddy snow. Chelubey was laughing at him right along with the crowd.

Kasyan said nothing; he did not speak at all until they were well up into the choked and winding streets, and his first words were not to Vasya at all. “Marya Vladimirovna, I believe?” he said to the child without turning his head. “I am pleased to meet you.”

Marya gave him an owl-eyed look. “I am not supposed to talk to men,” she told him. “Mother says.” She shivered a little, and then heroically quelled it. “Oh, Mother is going to be angry with me.”

“With both of you, I imagine,” said Kasyan. “You really are an idiot, Vasilii Petrovich. Chelubey was about to spit you, and beg the Grand Prince’s pardon after. What possessed you to take the prince of Serpukhov’s daughter out riding?”

“I would not have let any harm come to her,” said Vasya.

Kasyan snorted. “You couldn’t have kept yourself from harm if the ambassador had drawn his sword, never mind the child. Besides, she was seen. That is harm enough; just ask her mother. No, forgive me; I have no doubt that her mother will tell you, at length. For the rest— You have baited Chelubey. He will not forget it, despite his smiles. They are all smiles in the court at Sarai—until they set their teeth into your throat and pull.”

Vasya barely heard; she was thinking of the joy and hunger in Marya’s face when she saw the wide world, outside the women’s quarters. “What matter if Masha was seen?” she asked with some heat. “I only took her riding.”

“I wanted to go!” Marya put in unexpectedly. “I wanted to see.”

“Curiosity,” said Kasyan, didactically, “is a dreadful trait in girls.” He grinned with a sort of acid cheer. “Just ask Baba Yaga: the more one knows, the sooner one grows old.”

They were nearly at the prince of Serpukhov’s palace. Kasyan sighed. “Well, well,” he added. “It is a holiday, isn’t it? I have nothing better to do than to protect virtuous maidens from gossip.” His voice sharpened. “Hide her in your cloak. Take her straight to the stallion-paddock and wait.” Kasyan rode forward, calling to the steward. His rings flashed in the sun. “Here am I, Kasyan Lutovich, come to drink wine with young Vasilii Petrovich.”

The gate was already unbarred, in honor of the festival morning; the gate-guard saluted. Kasyan rode in with Vasya on his heel, and the steward hurried forward.

“Take my horse,” ordered Kasyan magnificently. He swung to earth and shoved his gelding’s reins at the steward. “Vasilii Petrovich must manage his brute himself. I will see you after, boy.” With that, Kasyan strode off in the direction of the palace, leaving an irritated steward alone, holding the gelding by the bridle. He hardly looked at Vasya.

Vasya nudged Solovey toward his paddock. She had no idea what Kasyan did, but when they leaped the fence, to Marya’s delight, Vasya found Varvara already hurrying up, with such a look of white, mute fury on her face that both Vasya and Marya quailed. Vasya hurriedly slid to the ground, taking the child with her.

“Come, Marya Vladimirovna,” Varvara said. “You are wanted indoors.”

Marya looked frightened but said to Vasya, “I am brave like you. I do not want to go in.”

“You are braver than me, Masha,” Vasya said to her niece. “You have to go in this time. Remember, next time you see the ghost, ask her what she wants. She cannot hurt you.”

Marya nodded. “I am glad we went riding,” she whispered. “Even if Mother is angry. And I am glad we jumped over the Tatar.”

“So am I,” said Vasya.

Varvara took the child firmly by the hand and began towing her away. “My mistress wishes to see you in the chapel,” said Varvara over her shoulder. “Vasilii Petrovich.”

IT DID NOT OCCUR to Vasya to disobey. The chapel was crowned with a small forest of domes and not hard to find. Vasya stepped into the disapproving gaze of a hundred icons and waited.

Soon enough, Olga joined her there, walking heavily, with her time almost upon her. She crossed herself, bowed her head before the icon-screen, and then turned on her sister.

“Varvara tells me,” said Olga without preamble, “that you went riding at sunup and paraded my daughter through the streets. Is this true, Vasya?”

“Yes,” said Vasya, chilled at Olga’s tone. “We went riding. But I did not—”

“Mother of God, Vasya!” said Olga. What little color she had fled from her face. “Have you no thought for my daughter’s reputation? This is not Lesnaya Zemlya!”

“Her reputation?” asked Vasya. “Of course I care for her reputation. She spoke to no one. She was properly dressed; she covered her hair. I am her uncle, they say. Why can I not take her riding?”

“Because it is not—” Olga paused and dragged in air. “She must stay in the terem. Virgin girls mayn’t leave it. My daughter must learn to be still. As it is, you will have unsettled her for a month, and ruined her reputation forever, if we are unlucky.”

“Stay in these rooms, you mean? This tower?” Vasya’s eyes went involuntarily to the shuttered slit of a window, to the massed ranks of the icons. “Forever? But she is brave and clever. You can’t mean—”

“I do mean,” returned Olga, coldly. “Don’t interfere again, or I swear that I will tell Dmitrii Ivanovich who you are, and you will go to a convent. Enough. Go. Amuse yourself. The day is barely an hour old, and already I am tired of you.” She turned for the door.

Vasya, stricken, spoke before she could think. Olga stilled at the lash of her voice. “Do you have to stay here? Do you ever go anywhere, Olya?”

Olga’s shoulders stiffened. “I do well enough,” she said. “I am a princess.”

“But, Olya,” said Vasya, coming nearer. “Do you want to stay here?”

“Little girl,” said Olga, rounding on her with a flash of real rage, “do you think it matters—for any of us—what we want? Do you think I have any indulgence for any of this—for your mad starts, your reckless immodesty?”

Vasya stared, silenced and stiff.

“I am not our stepmother,” Olga continued. “I will not have it. You are not a child, Vasya. Just think, if you could only have listened for once, then Father would still be alive. Remember that, and be still!”

Vasya’s throat worked, but the words would not come. At last she said, eyes fixed on memory beyond the chapel walls, “I— They meant to send me away. Father wasn’t there. I was afraid. I didn’t mean for him—”

“That is enough!” snapped Olga. “Enough, Vasya. That is a child’s excuse, and you are a woman. What’s done is done. But you might mend your ways in future. Keep quiet, until the festival is over, for the love of God.”

Vasya’s lips felt cold. As a child she had daydreamed of her beautiful sister, living in a palace, like the fairy-tale Olga with her eagle-prince. But now those childish dreams dwindled to this: an aging woman, magnificent and solitary, whose tower door never opened, who would make her daughter a proper maiden but never count the cost.

Olga looked into Vasya’s eyes with a touch of weary understanding. “Come, now,” she said. “Living is both better and worse than fairy tales; you must learn it sometime, and so must my daughter. Do not look so, like a hawk with clipped wings. Marya will be all right. She is too young still for great scandal, fortunately, and hopefully she was not recognized. She will learn her place in time, and be happy.”

“Will she?” Vasya asked.

“Yes,” said Olga firmly. “She will. As will you. I love you, little sister. I will do my best for you, I swear it. You will have children in your turn, and servants to manage, and all this misfortune will be forgot.”

Vasya barely heard. The walls of the chapel were stifling her, as though Olga’s long, airless years had a shape and a flavor that she could breathe. She managed a nod. “Forgive me then, Olga,” she said, and walked past her sister, out the door, and down the steps into the roar of festival gathering below. If Olga tried to call her back, she did not hear.