The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(101)

“You are a practical man,” Vasya said gently. She stepped closer. He knotted his hands together. “You did not choose to side with the Tatar for loyalty, but for survival’s sake. Now you see that the opposite may be true. That we can win. Under the Khan you will never be more than a vassal, Oleg Ivanovich. If we win, then you will be a prince in your own right.”

It was an effort to keep her voice even. She had begun to shake with spending too long in Midnight. The Bear’s presence made that worse too. The chyert was a knot of deeper darkness, listening from the shadows.

“Witch, you have your brother and your cousin,” said Oleg. “Are you not content?”

“No,” said Vasya. “Summon your boyars and come with us.”

Oleg’s eyes were darting around the tent as though he could—not see, but sense—the Bear’s presence. The clay lamp guttered; the darkness around it deepened.

    Vasya aimed a glare at Medved, and the dark retreated a little.

“Come with us and have victory,” Vasya said.

“Maybe a victory,” murmured the Bear from behind her. “Who knows?”

Oleg was shrinking nearer the lamplight, without quite knowing what frightened him.

“Tomorrow,” said Vasya. “Have your men fall behind the main body again. We’ll be waiting.”

After a long silence, Oleg said firmly, “My men will stay with Mamai.”

She heard the echo of her failure in the words, just as the Bear let out a sigh of pleased understanding.

Then Oleg finished, and Vasya understood. “If I am to betray the general, better to wait until the right moment.”

Their eyes met.

“I love a clever traitor,” said the Bear.

Oleg said, “My boyars want to fight on the Russian side. I thought it my task to constrain their foolishness. But—”

Vasya nodded. Had she convinced him to risk his place and his life with naught but tricks and chyerti—and her own dogged faith? She looked him in the face, and felt the burden of his belief. “Dmitrii Ivanovich will be at Kolomna in a fortnight,” she said. “Will you come to him then, and lay your plans?”

Oleg said, “I will send a man. But I cannot go myself. Mamai would suspect.”

Vasya said, “You can go yourself. I will take you there and back in the course of a single night.”

Oleg stared. Then grim humor touched his face. “On your mortar? Very well, witch. But know that even combining our strength, Dmitrii and I might as well be two beetles plotting to break a boulder.”

“Where is your faith?” said Vasya, and smiled suddenly. “Look for me at midnight, in two weeks.”





31.


    All the Russias




THE MEN OF RUS’ MUSTERED at Kolomna over the course of four gray, chilly days. One by one the princes came: Rostov and Starodub, Polotsk, Murom, Tver, Moscow, and the rest, as a cold rain whispered over the muddy fields.

Dmitrii Ivanovich set his tent in the middle of the gathering host, and the first night they were all assembled, he summoned his princes to him to take counsel.

They were grim, heavy with fatigue from mustering and marching in haste. It was well after moonset when the last of them crowded into Dmitrii’s round felt tent, shooting each other wary looks. Midnight was not far off. Outside lay the Russian horse-lines, their wagons and their fires, stretching in every direction.

All that day, the Grand Prince had been getting reports. “The Tatars are assembling here,” he said. He had a map; he pointed to a marshy place, on the curve of the Don river, at the mouth of a smaller tributary. Snipes’ Field it was called, for the birds in the long grass. “They are waiting for reinforcements; units from Litva, mercenaries from Caffa. We must strike before their reinforcements can come up. Three days’ march and battle at dawn on the fourth day, if all goes well.”

“By how much do they outnumber us now?” demanded Mikhail of Tver.

Dmitrii did not answer. “We will form two lines,” he continued. “Here.” He touched the map again. “Spears, shields, to hem in the horses, and use the forest to guard our flanks. They do not like attacking in the woods—it turns their arrows.”

    “By how many, Dmitrii Ivanovich?” demanded Mikhail again. Tver had been a greater principality than Moscow for most of its history, and rivals for the rest; alliance did not sit easily on them.

Dmitrii could not avoid answering. “Twice our force,” he said. “Perhaps a little more. But—”

Muttering went around the men. Mikhail of Tver spoke up again. He said, “Have you had word of Oleg of Ryazan?”

“Marching with Mamai.”

The muttering redoubled.

“It matters not,” Dmitrii went on. “We have men enough. We have the blessing of holy Sergius.”

“Enough?” snapped Mikhail of Tver. “A blessing is enough perhaps to save our souls when we are slaughtered on the field, but not to win this fight!”

Dmitrii was on his feet. His voice temporarily silenced the men’s murmurs. “Doubt the power of God, Mikhail Andreevich?”

“How will we know God is on our side? For all we know, God wants us to be humble, Christlike, and submissive to the Tatar!”