The Bear and the Nightingale(40)

The dark seemed to press closer, hissing. The frost-demon spoke sharply, in words Dunya did not know. A bright wind filtered around the clearing, and the shadows drew back. The moon came out and set the snow to glowing.

“Please, winter-king,” Dunya said humbly, clenching her hands together. “Another year. One more sun-season; she will grow strong with rain and sunlight. I will not—I cannot—give my girl to Winter now.”

Laughter suddenly boomed from the undergrowth: old, slow laughter. Suddenly it seemed to Dunya that the moonlight shone through the frost-demon, that he was nothing but a trick of light and shadow.

But then he was a real man again, with weight and shape and form. His head was turned away, scanning the undergrowth. When he turned back to Dunya, his face was grim.

“You know her best,” he said. “I cannot take her unready; she will die. Another year, then. Against my judgment.”





Anna Ivanovna suffered with the others that winter. Her hands swelled and stiffened; her teeth ached. She dreamed of cheese and eggs and cresses, all the while eating sour cabbage and black bread and smoked fish. Irina, never strong, faded to a listless shadow of herself, and Anna, terrified for her child, found a strange kinship with Dunya in coaxing broths and honey down the child’s throat and keeping her warm.

But at least she saw no demons. The little bearded creature did not creep about the house; the twiggy brown beggar did not creep about the dvor. Anna saw only men and women, and endured only the ordinary troubles of a crowded house in a bad winter. And Father Konstantin was there: a man like an angel, such as she had never imagined a man to be, with his shining voice and tender mouth and the blessed icons that took shape under his strong hands. She saw him every day that winter, when they were all cooped up indoors. It was meat and drink to her to bask in his presence, and she desired nothing more. Her mind was at ease; she could even bring herself to smile at her stepsons and endure Vasilisa.

But when the snow came and the cold broke, Anna’s peace was shattered.

A gray noontide, with little snow flurries out of a leaden sky, found Anna running to find Konstantin in his cell. “The demons are still here, Batyushka,” she cried. “They came back; they were only hiding before. They are sly; they are liars. How have I sinned? Father, what must I do?” She was weeping, shivering. Only that morning, the domovoi had crept, stubborn and smoldering, out of the oven and taken up Dunya’s basket of mending.

Konstantin did not answer at once. His fingers were blue and white where they gripped the brush—he had retreated to his room to paint. Anna had brought him soup. It sloshed in her trembling hands. Cabbage, Konstantin noted with disgust. He was mortally weary of cabbage. Anna put the bowl down beside him, but she did not go.

“Patience, Anna Ivanovna,” the priest replied, when it became clear she was waiting for him to speak. He did not turn around, nor slow his quick, dabbing brushstrokes. It was weeks since he had painted. “It is an infestation of long standing, fed by the straying of many. Only wait, and I will bring them back to God.”

“Yes, Batyushka,” Anna said. “But today I saw—”

He hissed between his teeth, “Anna Ivanovna, you will never be rid of devils if you creep around looking for them. What good Christian woman behaves so? You would do better to fear God and pass your time in prayer. Much prayer.” He glanced pointedly toward the door.

But Anna did not go. “You have done wonders already. I am—do not think me ungrateful, Batyushka.” She swayed toward him, trembling. Her hand dropped onto his shoulder.

Konstantin shot her an impatient glance. She jerked back as though burned, and a dull flush crept up her face. “Give thanks to God, Anna Ivanovna,” Konstantin said. “Leave me to my work.”

She stood a moment, wordless, and then fled.

Konstantin seized his soup and swallowed it at a gulp. He wiped his mouth and tried again to find the calm needful for painting. But the lady’s words scratched at him. Demons. Devils. How have I sinned? Konstantin’s mind wandered. He had filled these people with the fear of God, and they were on the path to salvation. They needed him—loved and feared him in equal measure. Rightly, for he was God’s messenger. They worshipped his icons. All that he could contrive with words and fierce looks, of obedience to God’s will and spirit of humility, he had done. He felt the effect.

And yet.

Unwillingly, Konstantin thought of Pyotr’s second daughter. He had watched her that winter, her childish grace, her laughter, her careless impudence, the secret sadness that sometimes crossed her face. He remembered how once she had emerged out of the dusk, at home in the cold and the falling night. He himself had taken mead from her hand, not thinking beyond his gratitude that he might slake his thirst.

She is not afraid, Konstantin thought dourly. She does not fear God; she fears nothing. He saw it in her silences, her fey glance, the long hours she spent in the forest. In any case, no good Christian maid ever had eyes like that, or walked with such grace in the dark.

For her soul, and for the souls of all in this desolate place, thought Konstantin, he must have her humility. She must see what she was and fear it. Save her, and he would save them all. Failing that…Konstantin paid no mind to his fingers; he painted in a haze while his mind worried away at the problem. At last he swam back to consciousness and his eyes took in what he had painted.