The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy #2)(61)

Sasha vaulted the paddock’s bars with lithe grace.

“Where are you going?” Vasya cried, stupidly.

“I am taking you back to Olga’s palace,” he said. “You have said, done, and seen enough for one night.”

Vasya hesitated, protests filling her throat. But one look at his taut back told her that he would not hear them. Her breathing ragged, Vasya touched Solovey’s neck in parting and followed.





17.


Marya the Pirate




Vasya’s room in the men’s quarters was small, but warm and far cleaner than anything in Dmitrii’s palace. Some wine had been kept hot on the oven beside a little stack of butter-cakes, only a little gnawed by an adventurous mouse.

Sasha brought her to the threshold, said “God be with you,” and left.

Vasya sank onto the bed. The sounds of Moscow in festival filtered in through her slitted window. She had ridden all day every day for weeks on end, endured both battle and sickness, and was bone-weary. Vasya bolted the door, cast off cloak and boots, ate and drank without tasting, and climbed beneath the mound of fur coverlets.

Though the blankets were heavy and the stove sent out steady warmth, still she shook and could not fall asleep. Again and again she tasted the lies on her own tongue, heard Father Konstantin’s deep, plausible voice telling her brother and sister a tale that was—almost—true. Again she heard the bandit-captain’s war-cry and saw his sword flash in the moonlight. Moscow’s noise and its glitter bewildered her; she did not know what was true.

Eventually Vasya drifted off. She awoke with a jolt, in the still hour after midnight. The air had a thick tang of wet wool and incense, and Vasya stared bewildered into the midnight rafters, longing for a breath of the clean winter wind.

Then her breath stilled in her throat. Somewhere, someone was weeping.

Weeping and walking, the sound was coming nearer. Sobs like needles stabbed through the palace of Serpukhov.

Vasya, frowning, got to her feet. She heard no footsteps, just the gasp and choke of tears.

Nearer.

Who was crying? Vasya heard no sound of feet, no rustle of clothes. A woman crying. What woman would come here? This was the men’s half of the house.

Nearer.

The weeper paused, right outside her door.

Vasya nearly ceased to breathe. Thus the dead had come back to Lesnaya Zemlya, crying, begging to be taken in out of the cold. Nonsense, there are no dead here. The Bear is bound.

Vasya gathered her courage, drew her ice-knife to be cautious, crossed the room, and opened the door a crack.

A face stared back at her, right up against the doorframe: a pale, curious face with a grinning mouth.

You, it gobbled. Get out, go—

Vasya slammed the door and flung herself backward to the bed, heart hammering. Some pride—or some instinct of silence—buried her scream, though her breath snarled in and out.

She had not bolted the door, and slowly it creaked open.

No—now there was nothing there. Only shadows, a trickle of moonlight. What was that? Ghost? Dream? God be with me.

Vasya watched a long time, but nothing moved, no sound marred the darkness. At length, she gathered her courage, got up, crossed the room, and shut the door.

It was a long time before she fell asleep again.



VASILISA PETROVNA AWOKE ON the first day of Maslenitsa, stiff and hungry, remorseful and rebellious, to find a pair of large dark eyes hanging over her.

Vasya blinked and gathered her feet beneath her, wary as a wolf.

“Hello,” the owner of the eyes said archly. “Aunt. I am Marya Vladimirovna.”

Vasya gaped at the child, and then tried for an older brother’s outraged dignity. She still had her hair tied up in a hood. “This is improper,” she said stiffly. “I am your uncle Vasilii.”

“No, you’re not,” said Marya. She stepped back and crossed her arms. Her little boots were embroidered with scarlet foxes, and a band of silk hung with silver rings set off her dark hair. Her face was white as milk, her eyes like holes burned in snow. “I crept in after Varvara yesterday. I heard Mother telling Uncle Sasha everything.” She looked Vasya up and down, a finger in her mouth. “You are my ugly aunt Vasilisa,” she added, with a fair attempt at insouciance. “I am prettier than you.”

Marya might well have been called pretty, in the unformed way of children, were she not so pale, so drawn.

“Indeed you are,” Vasya said, torn between amusement and dismay. “But not as pretty as Yelena the Beautiful, who was stolen by the Gray Wolf. Yes, I am your aunt Vasilisa, but that is a great secret. Can you keep a secret, Masha?”

Marya lifted her chin and sat down on the bench by the stove, taking care with her skirts. “I can keep a secret,” she said. “I want to be a boy, too.”

Vasya decided it was too early in the morning for this conversation. “But what would your mother say,” she asked, a little desperately, “if she lost her little daughter, Masha?”

“She wouldn’t care,” retorted Marya. “She wants sons. Besides,” she went on, with bravado, “I have to leave the palace.”

“Your mother may want sons,” Vasya conceded. “But she wants you, too. Why must you leave the palace?”

Marya swallowed. For the first time, her air of jaunty courage deserted her. “You wouldn’t believe me.”