18.

Horse-Tamer

Kasyan met her at the gate.

“I thought you came to drink wine with me,” Vasya said.

Kasyan snorted. “Well, you are here,” he returned easily. “And wine can be got. You look as though you could use it.” The dark glance found hers. “Well, Vasilii Petrovich? Did your sister break a bowl over your head, and bid you marry your niece at once, to redeem her lost virtue?”

Vasya was not entirely sure if Kasyan was joking. “No,” she said shortly. “But she was very angry. I—thank you for helping me return Marya to the house without the steward and the guard seeing.”

“You ought to get drunk,” Kasyan said, shrugging this off. “Thoroughly. It would do you good; you are angry and not sure who to be angry with.”

Vasya merely bared her teeth. She felt her snatched-at freedom keenly. “Lead the way, Kasyan Lutovich,” she said. All around, the city shrieked and bubbled, like a kettle on the boil.

Kasyan’s tight, secret mouth curved a little. They turned down the muddy street from Olga’s palace and were instantly lost in the joyous maw of a city at play. Music sounded from side-streets where girls danced with hoops. A procession was getting up; Vasya saw a straw woman on a stick being hoisted above a laughing crowd, and a bear with an embroidered collar being led like a dog. The bells rang out above them. The snow-slides were crowded now, and folk pushed each other for their turn, fell off the back of the slide or came tumbling headfirst down the front. Kasyan paused. “The ambassador,” he said delicately. “Chelubey.”

“What?” said Vasya.

“It seemed as if he knew you,” said Kasyan.

A clamor rang out in the streets ahead. “What is that?” Vasya asked instead of answering. A wave of people ahead of them were falling back. Next moment a runaway horse came galloping, wild-eyed, up the street.

It was the mare from the market, the filly Vasya had coveted. Her white stockings flashed in the dirty snow. People shouted and ducked out of the way; Vasya opened her arms to arrest the mare’s flight.

The mare tried to dodge around her, but Vasya adroitly seized the broken lead-rope and said, “Hold, lady. What is the matter?”

The mare shied at Kasyan and reared, panicked by the crowd. “Get back!” Vasya told them. The people drew away a trifle, and then came the sound of three sets of steady hoofbeats as Chelubey and his attendants came trotting up the street.

The Tatar gave Vasya a look of languid surprise. “So we meet yet again,” he said.

Vasya, now that Marya was home and safe, felt she had very little to lose. So she raised a brow and said, “Bought the mare and she ran away?”

Chelubey was composed. “A fine horse has spirit. What a good boy, to catch her for me.”

“Spirit is no excuse to terrify her,” retorted Vasya. “And don’t call me boy.” The mare was almost vibrating against her grip, jerking her head in renewed fright.

“Kasyan Lutovich,” Chelubey said, “take this child in hand. Or I will beat him for impudence and take his horse. He may keep the filly.”

“If I had the filly,” Vasya said recklessly, “I would be riding her before the noon bell. I would not have her fleeing panicked through the streets of Moscow.”

The bandit, she saw with anger, was looking amused again. “Big words for a child. Come, give her to me.”

“I will wager my horse,” said Vasya, not moving—she thought of Katya starving because Dmitrii must have taxes to pay for a new war, and her rage at Chelubey fueled a temper already inclined to rashness—“that this mare will bear me on her back before the third hour rings.”

Kasyan began. “Vasya—”

She did not look at him.

Chelubey laughed outright. “Will you, now?” His eye took in the flighty, frightened mare. “As you like. Show us this marvel. But if you fail, I will certainly have your horse.”

Vasya gathered her nerve. “If I do win, I want the mare for myself.”

Kasyan gripped her arm, urgently. “It is a foolish wager.”

“If the boy wants to throw away his property on boasting,” said Chelubey, to Kasyan, “it is his business. Now off you go, boy. Ride the mare.”

Vasya did not reply, but considered the frightened horse. The mare was dancing on the end of her rope, jerking Vasya’s arms with every plunge, and scarcely had a horse ever looked less rideable.

“I will need a paddock, with a fence of decent height,” said Vasya at length.

“An open space and a ring of people is all you get,” said Chelubey. “You should consider the conditions of your wagers before making them.”

The smile had fallen off his face; now he was crisp and serious.

Vasya thought again. “The market-square,” she said after a moment. “There is more room.”

“As you wish,” said Chelubey, with an air of great condescension.

“When your brother finds out, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan muttered, “I am not standing between you.”

Vasya ignored him.

THEIR WAY DOWN TO the square became a procession, with word flying through the streets ahead of them. Vasilii Petrovich has made a wager with the Tatar lord Chelubey. Come down to the square.

But Vasya did not hear. She heard nothing but the mare’s breathing. She walked beside the horse, while the creature thrashed against the rope, and she talked. It was nonsense mostly; compliments, love words, whatever she could think of. And she listened to the horse. Away was all the mare could think, all she could say with head and ears and quivering limbs. Away, I must get away. I want the others and good grass and silence. Away. Run.

Vasya listened to the horse and hoped she had not done something supremely stupid.

PAGAN HE MIGHT BE, but the Russians loved a showman, and Chelubey swiftly proved himself nothing if not that. If someone in the crowd shouted praise, he bowed with a flourish of the rough-cut gems on his fingers. If someone jeered, hidden in the throng, he answered in roaring kind, making his audience laugh.

They made their way down into the great square, and Chelubey’s riders began at once to clear an open space. The merchants swore, but eventually it was done, and the stocky Tatar horses stood still, swishing their tails, fetlock-deep in the snow, holding back the throng.

Chelubey informed one and all of the conditions of the wager, in his execrable Russian. Instantly, and in defiance of any number of prelates present, the betting among the onlookers began to fly thick and fast, and children clambered onto market stalls to watch. Vasya stood with the terrified mare in the middle of the new-made circle.

Kasyan stood just at the inner edge of the crowd. He looked half disgusted, half intrigued, his glance inward, as though he were thinking furiously. The throng grew larger and louder, but all Vasya’s attention was on the mare.

“Come now, lady,” she said in the horse’s speech. “I mean you no harm.”

The mare, stiff through her body, made no answer.

Vasya considered, breathed, and then, ignoring the risk, and with every eye in the square on her, stepped forward and pulled the halter from the horse’s head.

A muted sound of astonishment moved through the crowd.

The mare stood still an instant, as startled as her watchers, and in that moment, Vasya hissed between her teeth. “Go then! Flee!”

The mare needed no encouragement; she bolted toward the first of the steppe-horses, spun, ran for the other, and ran again. If she tried to halt, Vasya drove her on. For of course, to be ridden, the horse must first obey, and the only order the mare would obey at the moment was an order to run away.

Begone. This order had another meaning. When a foal disobeyed, Vasya’s beloved Mysh, the herd-mare at Lesnaya Zemlya, would drive the young one, for a time, out of the herd. She had even done it to Vasya once, to the girl’s chagrin. It was the direst punishment a young horse could sustain, for the herd is life.

With this filly, Vasya acted as a mare would act—a wise old mare. Now the filly was wondering—Vasya could see it in her ears—if this two-legged creature understood her, and if, just possibly, she was no longer alone.

The crowd all around was completely silent.

Suddenly Vasya stood still, and in the same moment the mare halted.

The crowd gave a sigh. The mare’s eyes were fixed on Vasya. Who are you? I don’t want to be alone, the mare told her. I am afraid. I don’t want to be alone.

Then come, said Vasya with the turn of her body. Come to me, and you will never be alone again.

The mare licked her lips, ears pricked. Then, to soft cries of wonder, the mare took one step forward, and then another, and then a third and a fourth, until she could lay her nose against the girl’s shoulder.

Vasya smiled.

She did not heed the shouts from all sides; she scratched the mare’s withers and flanks, as horses will for each other.

You smell like a horse, said the mare nosing her over uncertainly.

“Unfortunately,” said Vasya.

Casually, the girl began to walk. The mare followed her, her nose still at Vasya’s shoulder. Now here. Now there. Turn back.

Stop.

The mare stopped when Vasya did.

Ordinarily Vasya would have left it there, let the horse go and be quiet and remember not being afraid. But there was a wager. How much more time did she have?

The people watched in muttering hush; she glimpsed Kasyan’s eyes inscrutable. “I am going to get on your back,” Vasya said to the horse. “Just for a moment.”

The mare was dubious. Vasya waited.

Then the mare licked her lips and lowered her head, unhappy, the trust there, but fragile.

Vasya leaned her body onto the mare’s withers, letting her take the weight. The mare shivered, but she didn’t move.

With an inward prayer, Vasya jumped as lightly as she could, swung a leg over, and was on the mare’s back.

The mare half-reared, and then stilled, trembling, both ears pitched pleadingly back to Vasya. The wrong move—even a wrong breath—and the mare would be in full flight, all the girl’s work undone.

Vasya did nothing at all. She rubbed the mare’s neck. She murmured to her. When she felt the horse relax a little—a very little—she touched her with a light heel that said walk.

The mare did, still rigid, ears still pitched back. She went a few steps and halted, stiff-legged as a foal.

Enough. Vasya slid to the ground.

She was met with absolute silence.

And then a wall of noise. “Vasilii Petrovich!” they shouted. “Vasilii the Brave!”

Vasya, overcome, a little dizzy, bowed to the crowd. She saw Chelubey’s face, irritated now, but still with that curve of unwilling amusement.

“I will take her now,” Vasya told him. “A horse must consent, after all, to be ridden.”

Chelubey said nothing for a moment. Then he surprised her by laughing. “I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery.”

All around, the people took up the laughter. The Tatar’s smile did not waver, though the half-suppressed laughter in his face vanished. “Come and fight me then, boy,” he returned, low. “I will have my recompense.”

“Not today,” said Kasyan firmly. He came up and stood at Vasya’s shoulder.

“Well, then,” said Chelubey with deceptive mildness. He waved to one of his men. A fine, embroidered halter appeared. “With my compliments,” he said. “She is yours. May your life be long.”

His eyes promised otherwise.

“I do not need a halter,” Vasya said, proudly and carelessly. She turned her back, and when she began to walk away, the mare still followed her, anxious nose at Vasya’s shoulder.

“You have a genius for trouble, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said, resignedly, falling in beside her. “You have made an enemy. But—you have a genius for horsemanship as well. That was a masterly display. What will you call her?”

“Zima,” said Vasya without thinking. Winter. It suited her delicacy, her white markings. She stroked the mare’s neck.

“Do you mean to set up as a horse-breeder, then?”

The mare breathed like a bellows in Vasya’s ear, and the girl turned, startled, to look at the filly’s white-blazed face. A horse-breeder? Well, she had this horse now, who would bear foals. She had a kaftan worked in gold thread: a gift from a prince. A pale knife, sheathed at her side: a gift from a frost-demon; and the sapphire necklace hung cold between her breasts: a gift from her father. Many gifts, and precious.

She had a name. Vasilii Petrovich, the crowd had roared. Vasilii the Brave. Vasya felt pride, as though the name were really her own.

Vasya felt she could have been anyone at that moment—anyone except who she really was—Vasilisa, Pyotr’s daughter, born in the far forest. Who am I? Vasya wondered, suddenly dizzy.

“Come,” said Kasyan. “It will be all over Moscow before nightfall. They are going to call you Vasilii Horse-Tamer now—you will have more epithets than your brother. Put the filly in the paddock with Solovey, and let him console her. Now you must assuredly get drunk.”

Vasya, with no better notions, followed him back up the way she had come, keeping a hand on the mare’s neck as they passed again through the riotous city.

SOLOVEY, CONFRONTED WITH AN actual mare, was more uncertain than pleased. The mare, eyeing the bay stallion, was in no better case. They watched each other with ears eased back. Solovey ventured a placating rumble, only to be met with a squeal and flying hooves. The two horses finally retreated to either end of the paddock and glared.

Unpromising. Vasya watched them, hand on fist, leaning against the paddock rail. Part of her had dreamed for a moment of having a foal of Solovey’s blood, a herd of horses all her own, an estate to manage how she would.

The other, sensible part was informing her, patiently, that this was quite impossible.

“Drink, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said, leaning on the rail beside her. He handed her a skin of thick, dark beer he’d bought on the way. She drank deep, and put it down with a gasp. “You never answered,” said Kasyan, taking the skin back. “Why does this man Chelubey seem to know you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Vasya said. “My brother didn’t believe me.”

Kasyan let out a little half-breath. “I suggest,” he said acidly, pulling at the beer in turn, “that you try me, Vasilii Petrovich.”

It was almost a dare. Vasya looked into his face, and told him.

“WHO KNOWS OF THIS?” Kasyan asked her sharply when she had done. “Who else have you told?”

“Besides my brother? No one,” returned Vasya bitterly. “Do you believe me?”

A small silence. Kasyan turned away from her, watched with unseeing eyes the smoke spirals of a hundred ovens, against the pure sky. “Yes,” said Kasyan. “Yes, I believe you.”

“What should I do?” asked Vasya. “What does it mean?”

“That they are a folk of robbers and the sons of robbers,” Kasyan replied. “What else could it mean?”

Vasya did not think that mere robbers could have built the ambassador’s exquisite palace, nor did she think a robber born would have Chelubey’s elegant manner. But she did not argue. “I wanted to tell the Grand Prince,” she said instead. “But my brother said I must not.”

Kasyan tapped his teeth with a forefinger, considering. “There must be proof first, beyond your word, before you go to Dmitrii Ivanovich. I will send out a man to search the burnt villages. We will find a priest, or some villager who has seen the bandits. We must have more witnesses than you.”

Vasya felt a rush of gratitude that he believed her, and that he knew what to do. Above them the bells rang. The two horses nosed for dry grass beneath the snow, determinedly ignoring each other.

“I will wait, then,” Vasya said, with renewed confidence. “But I will not wait too long. Soon I must try my luck with Dmitrii Ivanovich, witnesses or no.”

“Understood,” said Kasyan practically, clapping a hand to her shoulder. “Go and wash yourself, Vasilii Petrovich. We must go to church, and then there will be feasting.”