The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(23)
“There was a fire, as you saw,” said Dmitrii. “And a riot. I will tell you everything. But why have you come in this haste?”
“The temnik Mamai has provisioned his army.”
A silence fell in the room; Vladimir hadn’t tried to soften the blow. “I had word in Serpukhov,” he continued. “Mamai has a rival farther south who is growing more powerful by the day. To stave off the threat he must have Muscovy’s allegiance and our silver. He is coming north himself to get it. There is no doubt. He will be in Moscow by autumn, if you don’t pay him, Dmitrii Ivanovich. You will have to muster your silver or muster an army, and there is no more time to delay.”
On Dmitrii’s face was a strange mix of anger and eagerness. “Tell me everything you know,” he said. “Come, let us drink and—” Sasha saw, with fury, that his cousin was relieved, for the moment, to set aside all questions of devils and the dead, and of culpability in the riot and the burning. Matters of war and politics were more pressing and less fraught.
Through a cold sinking tangle of anger and dismay, Sasha could have sworn that there was someone in the room laughing.
* * *
“SEND THE PRIEST AWAY UNPUNISHED?” Sasha demanded later. He could barely speak. There had been scarce a moment to catch his cousin alone, after Vladimir Andreevich came. Sasha finally caught Dmitrii in the dooryard, just as he was about to mount his horse to go look over the burned parts of Moscow. “Do you think Vladimir Andreevich will accept that? Vasya was his sister-in-law.”
“I have had the chief men of the riot arrested,” said Dmitrii. He took the reins from a groom, a hand on his horse’s withers. “They will be put to death for damaging the Prince of Serpukhov’s property, for laying hands on his kin. But I am not going to touch that priest—no, listen to me. Charlatan the priest may be, but a very good one. Didn’t you see the crowd outside?”
“I saw,” said Sasha, unwillingly.
“They will riot if I kill him,” Dmitrii went on, “and I can afford no more riots. He can control the mob, and I can control him; that is the kind of man who wants gold and glory, despite all his pretension of piety. The news from the south changes everything; you know it does. I can either squeeze all my boyars, all my princes, and the wretched city fathers of Novgorod for silver, or I can undertake the far more difficult route of calling all the princes of Rus’—the ones that will come—and equipping an army. I will try the former, for my people’s sake, but I cannot afford to be at odds with my city over it. That man may be useful. I have decided, Sasha. Besides, his story is plausible. Perhaps he is telling the truth.”
“Do you think I am lying then? What about my sister?”
“She caused the fire,” said Dmitrii. His voice grew suddenly cold. “Maybe her death by fire was justice. You certainly didn’t tell me of it. It seems we are back where we started. Telling lies, and omitting truths.”
“It was an accident.”
“And yet,” said Dmitrii.
They looked at each other. Sasha knew that the fragile, regained trust had eroded once more. There was a silence.
Then— “There is something I want you to do,” said the Grand Prince. He let go the reins of his horse and drew Sasha aside. “Are we still kin, Brother?”
* * *
“I COULD NOT PERSUADE DMITRII,” said Sasha wearily to Olga. “The priest goes free. Dmitrii is going to raise silver, to placate the Tatars.”
His sister was darning stockings, plain needles and swift hands incongruous in the magnificence of her embroidered lap. Only the jerky movements of her fingers revealed her feelings. “No justice then, for my sister, for my daughter, for my smashed gates?” she asked.
Sasha shook his head slowly. “Not now. Not yet. But your husband has returned. You are safe now, at least.”
“Yes,” Olga replied, in a voice dry as summer dust. “Vladimir has returned. He will come to me—today or tomorrow—after he has delivered all his news and made his plans and bathed and eaten and caroused with the Grand Prince. Then I may tell him that his hoped-for second son was a daughter, and she is dead. In the meantime, there is a demon loose and— Do you think there will be war?”
Sasha hesitated, but Olga’s set face dared him to pity her, and in the end, he accepted the change of subject. “Not if Dmitrii pays. Mamai cannot really want a war; he has a rival south of Sarai. He only wants money.”
“A great deal of money, I imagine,” Olga said, “if he is going to the trouble of mustering an army to extort it. There were bandits in Muscovy all winter, and Moscow in flames not long ago. Will Dmitrii be able to get his money?”
“I don’t know,” Sasha admitted, then paused. “Olya, he has sent me away.”
That broke through her composure. “Sent you—where?”
“To the Lavra. To Father Sergei. The troubles of men and armies, Dmitrii understands. But with all the talk of wickedness, spoiling, and demons, he wants Father Sergei’s advice, and sent me to get him.” Sasha rose to pace, restless. “The city is against me now, because of Vasya.” The admission cost him. “He says it would be unwise for me to stay. For your sake and my own.”