The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(60)

“Don’t leave me,” said Konstantin. It came out a grinding whisper.

The thick fingers stroked his face with surprising delicacy. Eyes wide and densely blue rose to meet a single gray eye, a face seamed with scars. The Bear breathed his answer into Konstantin’s ear. “I was alone for a hundred lives of men, bound in a clearing beneath an unchanging sky. You can make life with your hands, of a kind I’ve never seen. Why would I ever leave you?”

Konstantin did not know whether to be relieved or terrified.

“But,” murmured the Bear, “the cathedral.”



* * *





DMITRII DIDN’T AGREE. “Divine service for all Moscow?” he asked. “Father, be reasonable. Folk will faint from the heat, or perhaps be trampled. Feelings are running high enough already without calling everyone together to sweat and pray and kiss icons, pleasing as it may be to God.” This last was tacked on as an afterthought.

The Bear, watching invisibly, said with satisfaction, “I do love sensible men. They always try to make sense of the impossible and they can’t. Then they blunder. Come now, little father. Blind him with eloquence.”

Konstantin gave no sign he heard, beyond a tightening of his mouth. But aloud he said, reproof in his tone, “It is God’s will, Dmitrii Ivanovich. If there is any chance to lift this curse from Moscow we must take it. The dead are infecting Moscow with fear, and what if I am called too late? What if worse comes than upyry, and my prayers do not stop it? No, I think it better that the whole city pray together, and perhaps make an end of this curse.”

    Dmitrii was frowning still, but he agreed.



* * *





TO KONSTANTIN, THE WORLD seemed less real when he donned his new robes of white and scarlet, his collar high and stiffened in the back. Sweat ran like rivers down his spine as he put a hand to the door of the sanctuary.

The Bear said, “I wish to go in.”

“Then go in,” said Konstantin, his mind elsewhere.

The devil made a sound of impatience and took Konstantin’s hand. “You must bring me with you.”

Konstantin’s hand curled in the demon’s. “Why can’t you go in yourself?”

“I am a devil,” said the Bear. “But I am also your ally, man of God.”

Konstantin drew the Bear into the sanctuary with him, and gave the icons a spiteful look. See what I do, when you will not speak to me? The Bear looked about him curiously: at the gilding, and jeweled icon-covers, at the scarlet and blue of the ceiling.

At the people.

For the cathedral was packed with people, a shoving, swaying throng, smelling of sour sweat. Crammed together before the icon-screen, they wept and they prayed, watched over by the saints and also by a silent devil with one eye.

For the Bear walked out with the clergy, when the doors of the iconostasis were thrown open. Surveying the crowd, he said, “This bodes well. Come now, man of God. Show me your quality.”

When he began the service, Konstantin did not know whom he chanted for: the watching throng or the listening demon. But he flung all the torment of his tattered soul into it, until the whole cathedral wept.

Afterward, Konstantin went back to his cell in the monastery, kept against the furnishing of his own house, and lay down, wordless, in his sweat-soaked linen. His eyes were shut, and the Bear did not speak, but he was there. Konstantin could feel the dazzling, sulfurous presence.

    Finally the priest burst out, without opening his eyes, “Why are you silent? I did what you asked.”

The Bear said, almost growling, “You have been painting the things you will not say. Shame and sorrow and all the tedious rest. It is all there, in your Saint Peter’s face, and today you sang what you cannot bring yourself to utter. I could feel it. What if someone realizes? Are you trying to break your promise?”

Konstantin shook his head, his eyes still shut. “They will hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see,” he said. “Make what I feel their own, without understanding.”

“Well, then,” said the Bear, “men are great fools.” He let it go. “In any case, that scene in the cathedral should make enough.” Now he sounded pleased.

“Enough what?” said Konstantin. The sun had gone down by then; the green dusk brought some respite from the savage heat. He lay still, breathing, seeking in vain a breath of cool air.

“Enough dead,” said the Bear, unsparing. “They all kissed the same icon. I have use for the dead. Tomorrow you have to go to the Grand Prince. Secure your place with him. That monk of witch’s getting—Brother Aleksandr—he is going to come back. You must see to it that his place by the Grand Prince’s side is not waiting for him.”

Konstantin lifted his head. “The monk and the Grand Prince have been friends from boyhood.”

“Yes,” said the Bear. “And the monk saw fit to lie to Dmitrii, more than once. Whatever stiff-necked oaths he has sworn since, I assure you, it will not be enough to get back the prince’s trust. Or is it harder than setting a mob to kill a girl?”

“She deserved it,” Konstantin muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes. The blackness behind his eyelids gave him back a bruised, deep-green gaze, and he opened his eyes again.

“Forget her,” said the Bear. “Forget the witch. You are going to drive yourself mad with lust and pride and regret.”