The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3)(8)

Vasya felt the blade go through the stallion just as though it had cut her own throat, and she did not know she was screaming as she whirled like a wolf protecting her cub.

“Kill her!” cried someone in the crowd. “There she is—the unnatural bitch. Kill her.”

Vasya launched herself at them, heedless of anything, careless of her own life. Then a man’s fist fell on her, and another, until she could not feel them at all.



* * *





SHE WAS KNEELING IN a starlit forest. The world was black and white and quite still. A brown bird fluttered in the snow just out of reach. A figure, black-haired and bone-pale, knelt beside it, extending a cupped hand toward the creature.

She knew that hand; knew this place. She thought she could even see feeling behind the ancient indifference in the death-god’s eyes. But he was looking at the bird, not at her, and she could not be sure. He was stranger and farther away than he had ever been, his whole attention fixed on the nightingale in the snow.

“Take us together,” she whispered.

He did not turn.

“Let me come with you,” she tried again. “Let me not lose my horse.” Far away, she could feel the blows on her body.

The nightingale hopped into the death-god’s hand. He closed his fingers delicately about the creature, picked it up. With his other hand, he scooped up a handful of snow. The snow melted to water in his hand; it dripped upon the bird, who at once went still and stiff.

    Then, at last, he raised his eyes to hers. “Vasya,” he said, in a voice she knew. “Vasya, listen to me—”

But she could not reply.

For in the true world, the crowd drew back at a word from a man’s thunderous voice, and she was wrenched back to nighttime Moscow, bleeding in the trampled snow, but alive.

Perhaps she only imagined it. But when she opened her blood-smeared eyes, the death-god’s dark figure was still beside her, fainter than a noontime shadow, eyes urgent and quite helpless. He held the stiff body of a nightingale most tenderly in one hand.

Then he was gone. He might never have been there at all. She was lying across the body of her horse, sticky with his blood. Above her stood a man with golden hair, his eyes blue as midsummer. He wore the cassock of a priest and was looking at her with an expression of cold and steady triumph.



* * *





THROUGH ALL THE LONG ROADS and the griefs of his life, Konstantin Nikonovich had one gift that had never failed him. When he spoke, crowds grew pliant at the sound of his voice.

All that night, while the midnight snowstorm raged, he’d said extreme unction for the dying and comforted the wounded.

Then, in the black hour before dawn, he spoke to the people of Moscow.

“I cannot be silent,” he said.

At first his voice was low and gentle, addressing now this person, now that. As they began to pool about him, like water in the hollow of his hand, he raised his voice. “A great wrong has been done you.”

“Done us?” asked the soot-smeared, frightened people. “What wrong has been done us?”

“This fire was God’s punishment,” said Konstantin. “But the crime was not yours.”

    “Crime?” they asked, uneasy, clutching their children.

“Why do you think the city burned?” Konstantin demanded. Real sorrow thickened his voice. Children, smothered with smoke, had died in their mothers’ arms. He could grieve for that. He was not so far gone. His words were hoarse with feeling. “The fire was God’s punishment for the harboring of a witch.”

“A witch?” they asked. “Have we harbored a witch?”

Konstantin’s voice rose. “Surely you remember? The one you thought was called Vasilii Petrovich? The boy—who was in truth a girl? Remember Aleksandr Peresvet, whom all men thought so holy, tempted into sin by his own sister? Remember how she deceived the Grand Prince? That very night the city caught fire.”

As he spoke, Konstantin felt their mood shift. Their rage and grief and fright were turning outward. He encouraged them in this, deliberately, deftly, like a blacksmith putting an edge on a sword-blade.

When they were ready, he had only to take up the weapon.

“Justice must be done,” said Konstantin. “But I know not how. Perhaps God will know.”



* * *





NOW SHE LAY IN her sister’s dooryard with the blood of her horse drying on her hands. Her own blood stained lip and cheek and her eyes were full of tears. She breathed in wrenching gasps. But she was alive. She crawled gracelessly to her feet.

“Batyushka,” she said. The word cracked her lip anew and set the blood seeping down. “Call them back.” Her breaths came quick and painful between words. “Pull them back. You have killed my horse. Not—my sister. Not the children.”

The crowd spilled around and past them, their bloodlust unslaked. They were beating at the door of the palace of Serpukhov. The door was holding, just. Konstantin hesitated.

Low she added, “Twice I saved your life.” She could barely stand.

Konstantin knew himself powerful, riding the crowd’s fury, like a rider on a half-tamed horse. Abruptly he put his hand to the reins. “Back!” he cried to his followers. “Get back! The witch is here. We have taken her. Justice must be done; God will not wait.”