The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(16)

    He tried to master himself. The people had been as clay in his hands, softened as they were in the heat of Moscow’s fire. It would not always be so easy. If Dmitrii Ivanovich discovered that Konstantin had raised the mob, he would see him as a threat to his authority at least, if not the murderer of his cousin. Konstantin did not know if his new-made influence would be enough to counter the Grand Prince’s wrath.

He was so busy weeping, pacing, thinking and trying not to think, that he failed to notice the shadow on the wall, until it spoke.

“Crying like a maiden?” murmured a voice. “On tonight, of all nights? What are you doing, Konstantin Nikonovich?”

Konstantin leaped back with a sound not far from a scream. “It is you,” he said, breathing like a child afraid of the dark. And then, “No.” And finally, “Where are you?”

“Here,” said the voice.

Konstantin twisted round, but saw only his own shadow, cast by the lamp.

“No, here.” This time the voice seemed to come from his icon of the Mother of God. The woman beneath the gold icon-cover leered at him. She was not the Virgin at all, but Vasya with her red-black hair shaken loose, her face one-eyed and scarred with fire. Konstantin bit back another scream.

Then the voice said a third time, from his own cot, laughing, “No, here, poor fool.”

Konstantin looked and saw…a man.

Man? The creature on his bed looked like a man; such a man as had never before been seen in a monastery. He lounged smiling upon the bed, hair tumbled, feet incongruously bare. But his shadow—his shadow had claws.

“Who are you?” asked Konstantin, breathing fast.

“Did you never see my face before?” asked the creature. “Ah, no, at Midwinter you saw the beast and the shadow, but not the man.” He got slowly to his feet. He and Konstantin were nearly of a height. “Never mind. You know my voice.” He cast down his eyes like a girl. “Do I please you, man of God?” The unscarred side of his mouth twisted in a half-smile.

    Konstantin was pressed hard against the door, his fist against his mouth. “I remember. You are the devil.”

The man—the chyert—looked up at that, single eye alight. “I? Men call me the Bear, Medved, when they call me anything at all. Have you never thought that heaven and hell are both nearer you than you like to believe?”

“Heaven? Nearer?” said Konstantin. He could feel every ridge of the wooden wall pressed against his back. “God abandoned me. He gave me over to devils. There is no heaven. There is only this world of clay.”

“Exactly,” said the demon. He spread his arms wide. “To mold to your liking. What do you desire of this world, little father?”

Konstantin was shaking in every limb. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I need you. I am in need of a man.”

“For what?”

Medved shrugged. “Men do the work of devils, do they not? It has always been so.”

“I am not your servant.” His voice shook.

“Nay—who wants a servant?” said the Bear. He stepped closer and closer still, voice dropping. “Enemy, lover, passionate slave you may choose, but servant—no.” His red tongue just touched his upper lip. “See, I am generous in my bargains.”

Konstantin swallowed, his mouth dry. His breath came short, with eagerness and despair; it felt as though the walls of his cell were closing in. “What would I get in return for my—allegiance?”

“What do you want?” returned the chyert, so near that he could murmur the question into Konstantin’s ear.

In the priest’s soul was a desperate mourning. I prayed—all the years of my life, I prayed. But you were silent, Lord. If I am making bargains with devils it is only because you abandoned me. This devil looked as though he were following his thought with an easy and a secret delight.

“I want to forget myself in men’s devotion.” It was the first time he had ever spoken the thought aloud.

    “Done.”

“I want the comforts that princes have,” Konstantin went on. He was going to drown in that single eye. “Good meats and soft beds.” He breathed out the last word. “Women.”

The Bear laughed. “That too.”

“I want earthly authority,” Konstantin said.

“As much as your two hands, your heart, and your voice can compass,” the Bear said. “The world at your feet.”

“But what do you want?” breathed Konstantin Nikonovich.

The devil’s hand curled into a clawed fist. “All I wanted was to be free. My bastard brother penned me up in a clearing on the edge of winter for life after life of men. But at long last he wanted something more than he wanted me confined and I am freed at last. I have seen the stars and smelled the smoke, and tasted men’s fear.”

Softer, the devil added, “I have found the chyerti faded to shadows. Now men order their lives to the sound of damned bells. So I am going to throw the bells down, throw down the Grand Prince while I am about it; set fire to this whole little world of Rus’ and see what grows out of the ashes.”

Konstantin stared, fascinated and afraid.

“You will like that, won’t you?” asked the Bear. “That will teach your God to ignore you.” He paused and then added more prosaically, “In the short term, I want you to go tonight where I bid you and do what I tell you.”