The Bear and the Nightingale(57)

But Kyril went to Pyotr that evening at dinner. “I thought I was getting a well-bred maiden, not a wild creature.”

“Vasya is a good girl,” said Pyotr. “Headstrong, but that can be—”

Kyril snorted. “Black magic might have held that girl on my horse’s back, but no mortal art.”

“Strength only, and wildness,” said Pyotr, a little desperately. “She will give you strong sons.”

“At what price?” said Kyril Artamonovich, darkly. “I want a woman in my house, not a witch or a wood-sprite. Besides, she shamed me before all your company.”

And though Pyotr tried to reason with him, he would not be swayed.

Pyotr rarely beat his children. But when Kyril broke off his betrothal, he thrashed Vasya all the same, mostly to assuage his own fear for her. Can she not do as she’s told for once in her life?

They only come for the wild maiden.

Vasya bore it dry-eyed and gave him only a look of reproach before she walked stiffly away. He did not see her weeping afterward, curled between Mysh’s forefeet.

But there was no wedding. At dawn, Kyril Artamonovich rode away.





When Kyril had gone, Anna Ivanovna went again to her husband. Already the long nights hemmed in the autumn days; the household rose in the dark and supped by firelight. That night, Pyotr sat wakeful before the oven. His children had sought their beds, but sleep eluded him. The embers of the banked fire filled the room with red. Pyotr stared into the shimmering maw and thought of his daughter.

Anna had her mending on her lap, but she was not sewing. Pyotr never looked up, and so he did not see his wife’s face, hard and bloodless. “So Vasilisa will not marry,” she said.

Pyotr started. His wife spoke with authority; she reminded him, for the first time, of her father. And her words echoed his thought.

“No man of good birth will have her,” she continued. “Will you give her to a peasant?”

Pyotr was silent. He had been turning the question over in his mind. It went against his pride, to give his daughter to a baseborn man. But ever in his ear rang Dunya’s warning: Better anything than a frost-demon.

Marina, thought Pyotr. You left me this mad girl, and I love her well. She is braver and wilder than any of my sons. But what good is that in a woman? I swore I’d keep her safe, but how can I save her from herself?

“She must go to a convent,” Anna said. “The sooner the better. What other choice is there? No man of decent birth will have her. She is possessed. She steals horses, she made a horse go mad, she risked her nephew’s life for sport.”

Pyotr, staring in astonishment at his wife, found her almost beautiful in her steady purpose. “A convent?” said Pyotr. “Vasya?” He wondered, briefly, why he was so surprised. Unmarriageable daughters went to convents every day. But a more unlikely nun than Vasya he had never seen.

Anna clenched her hands. Her eyes seized and held him. “A life among holy sisters might save her immortal soul.”

Pyotr remembered again the face of the stranger in Moscow. Talisman or no, a frost-demon could not very well come for a girl vowed to God.

But still he hesitated. Vasya would never go willingly.

Father Konstantin sat in the shadows beside Anna. His face was drawn, his eyes dark as sloes.

“What say you, Batyushka?” Pyotr said. “My daughter has frightened her suitors. Shall I send her to a convent?”

“You have little choice, Pyotr Vladimirovich,” Konstantin said. His voice was slow and hoarse. “She will not fear God, and she will not listen to reason. The Ascension is a convent for highborn maidens within the walls of the Moscow kremlin. The sisters there would take her.”

Anna’s mouth tightened. Once, long ago, she had dreamed of entering that convent.

Pyotr hesitated.

“The walls of the kremlin are strong,” added Konstantin. “She would be safe and she would not go hungry.”

“Well, I will think on it,” said Pyotr, torn. She could go with the sledges, when he sent his tribute forth. But what man could he send to give warning of her coming? His daughter could not be delivered like an unwanted parcel, and it was late in the year for messengers.

Olya, he could send her to Olya, and she would arrange it. But no…Vasya must be wed or behind convent walls before midwinter. At midwinter he will come for her.

Vasya…Vasya in a convent? A veil over her black hair, a virgin until she died?

But her soul—above all there was her soul. She would have peace and plenty. She would pray for her family. And she would be safe from demons.

But she will not go willingly. It would grieve her so.

Konstantin watched Pyotr struggle, and was silent. He knew that God was on his side. Pyotr would be persuaded and means would be found. And indeed the priest was right.

Three nights later, Vasya brought home a wet and sneezing monk whom she had found lost in the woods.



SHE DRAGGED HIM IN a little before sundown, in the midst of a downpour. Dunya was telling a story. “Their father fell sick with longing,” she said. “So Prince Aleksei and Prince Dmitrii set out to find the bright-winged firebird. Long they rode, over three times nine kingdoms, until they came to a place where the road split. Beside the way lay a stone carved with words.”

The outer door thundered open and Vasya strode into the room, holding a big, young, bedraggled monk by the sleeve. “This is Brother Rodion,” she said. “He was lost in the forest. He is come from Moscow. Sasha sent him to us.”