The Bear and the Nightingale(54)

Whatever he found seemed to please him. When he let her go, his chest heaved, and his nostrils flared like a stallion’s. Vasya stood still, swallowing her nausea. She looked up into his face. I am a mare to him, she thought suddenly and clearly. And if a mare will not yield to harness, well, he will break her.

Kyril’s smile slipped a fraction. She could not know how much he had seen of her pride and scorn. His eyes strayed again to her mouth, the shape of her body, and she knew he saw her fear as well. The brief unease left his face. He reached for her again, but Vasya was quicker. She struck his hand aside, ran from the stable, and did not look back. When she reached the kitchen, she was so pale that Dunya made her sit by the fire and drink hot wine until a little color came back into her face.



ALL THAT DAY, A COLD mist rose from the earth, winding itself about the trees. The hunt made a kill near midday. Vasya, wielding a bread paddle with grim competence, heard, faintly, the shriek of the dying animal. It matched her mood.

The women left the house at gray noontide, with men to lead the laden packhorses. Konstantin rode out with them, his face pale and exalted in the autumn light. Men and women watched him with reverence and furtive admiration. Vasya, avoiding the priest, stayed with Irina near the back of the cavalcade, shortening her mare’s long stride to match Irina’s pony.

The mist crept over the earth. The women complained of chill and drew their cloaks about them.

Suddenly Mysh reared. Even Irina’s placid beast shied, so that the child gave a stifled scream and clutched her reins. Vasya hastily brought the mare down and caught the pony’s bridle. She followed Mysh’s ears with her eyes. A white-skinned creature stood between two tall birch trunks. He was man-shaped and light-eyed. His hair was the tangled undergrowth of the forest. He cast no shadow. “It’s all right,” Vasya said to Mysh. “That does not eat horses. Only foolish travelers.”

The mare swiveled her ears but, hesitantly, began to walk again.

“Leshy, lesovik,” murmured Vasya as they rode past. She bowed from the waist. He was the wood-guard—the leshy—and he seldom came so close to men.

“I would speak with you, Vasilisa Petrovna.” The wood-guard’s voice was the whisper of branches at dawn.

“Presently,” she said, mastering her surprise.

Beside her, Irina squeaked, “Who are you talking to, Vasya?”

“No one,” said Vasya. “Myself.”

Irina was quiet. Vasya sighed inwardly—Irina would tell her mother.

They found the hunters a little way into the forest, taking their ease under a great tree. They had already hung the pig, a sow, by her hocks from a massive limb. Her slit throat drained blood into a bucket. The wood rang with laughter and boasting.

Seryozha, who considered himself quite grown, had only with difficulty been persuaded to ride with the women. Now he leaped from his pony and darted over to stare, round-eyed, at the hanging pig. Vasya slid from Mysh’s back and gave the reins into a servant’s hand.

“A fine beast we have taken, is it not, Vasilisa Petrovna?” The voice came from her elbow. She whirled round. The blood had caked in the lines of Kyril’s palms, but his boyish smile was undimmed.

“The meat will be welcome,” said Vasya.

“I will save the liver for you.” His glance was speculative. “You could use fattening.”

“You are generous,” said Vasya. She bowed her head and slipped away, like a maiden too modest for speech. The women were extracting a cold meal from laden bundles. Carefully, Vasya worked herself closer and closer to a little grove of birch, then slipped among the trees and disappeared.

She did not see Kyril smile to himself and follow.



LESHIYE WERE DANGEROUS. WHEN they wished, they could lead travelers in circles until they collapsed. Sometimes the travelers were wise enough to put their clothes on backward for protection—but not often; they mostly died.

Vasya found him at the center of a little copse of birch. The leshy looked down at her with glittering eyes.

“What news?” said Vasya.

The leshy made a grinding sound of displeasure. “Your people come with clamor to fright my woods and kill my creatures. They would have asked my leave once.”

“We ask your leave again,” said Vasya quickly. They had trouble enough without angering the wood-guard. She untied her embroidered kerchief and laid it in his hand. He turned it over in his long, twiggy fingers.

“Forgive us,” said Vasya. “And—do not forget me.”

“I would ask the same,” said the wood-guard, mollified. “We are fading, Vasilisa Petrovna. Even I, who watched these trees grow from saplings. Your people waver, and so the chyerti wither. If the Bear comes now you are unprotected. There will be a reckoning. Beware the dead.”

“What does it mean, ‘beware the dead’?”

The leshy bowed his hoary head. “Three signs, and the dead are fourth,” he said. Then he disappeared, and all she heard were the birds singing in the rustling wood.

“Enough of this,” Vasya muttered, not really expecting a reply. “Why can none of you speak plainly? What are you afraid of?”

Kyril Artamonovich emerged from between the trees.

Vasya stiffened her spine. “Are you lost, my lord?”

He snorted. “No more than you, Vasilisa Petrovna. I have never seen a girl walk so light in the woods. But you should not go unprotected.”