The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy #2)(65)

“My horse is standing quiet,” said Vasya, trying to approximate a rich boyar’s arrogance. “What yours do is not my concern.” But his horses were certainly getting restive, and she backed Solovey off, considering the mares. They were all much alike, save the one who had called to Solovey. She was a chestnut, jauntily stockinged and taller than the others.

“I like that one,” said Marya, pointing at the chestnut.

Vasya did, too. A swift, mad thought had come to her—buy a horse? Until she’d left home, she had never bought anything in her life. But she had a handful of silver in her pocket and a newborn confidence warming her blood. “I wish to see that filly there,” Vasya said.

The horse-drover’s eye rested with doubt on the slender boy.

Vasya sat haughtily, waiting.

“As you say, Gospodin,” muttered the man. “At once.”

The chestnut mare was led forth, fretting at the end of a rope. The horse-drover trotted her back and forth through the snow. “Sound,” he said. “Just rising three year, a war-horse to make a hero of any man.”

The mare lifted first one foot, then the next. Vasya wanted to go to her, touch her, consider her legs, her teeth, but she did not want to leave Marya alone and exposed on Solovey’s back.

Hello, said Vasya to the mare instead.

The mare put her feet down; her ears went forward. Frightened, then, but not without common sense. Hello? she said tentatively. She put out a questing nose.

The sound of new hoofbeats echoed from the arch of the kremlin-gate. The mare jerked back, half-rearing. The horse-drover drew her down with a curse and sent her curvetting back into the pen.

Vasya, said Solovey.

Vasya turned. Three men came thudding into the square, riding broad-chested horses. They moved in a wedge; their leader wore a round hat, and an air of elegant authority. Chelubey, Vasya thought. Leader of bandits, so-called ambassador of the Khan.

Chelubey turned his head; his horse checked a stride. Then all three riders changed direction and made straight for the horse-pen. Chelubey shouted apologies in terrible Russian as they bulled through the crowd. Awed and angry faces turned to follow the Tatar’s progress.

The sun had risen higher. Cool white flames kindled in the ice of the river, and lights darted from the riders’ jewels.

Vasya pulled her cloak forward to conceal the child. “Be quiet,” she whispered. “We have to go.” She nudged Solovey into a casual walk toward the kremlin-gate. Masha sat still, though Vasya could feel her heart beating fast.

They should have moved quicker. The three riders fanned out with perfect skill, and suddenly Solovey was boxed in. The stallion reared, angrily. Vasya brought him down, holding tight to her niece. The riders reined their horses with skill that brought a murmur from the onlookers.

Chelubey rode his stocky mare with elegant composure, smiling. Something in his easy-seeming authority reminded her of Dmitrii; in that moment Chelubey was so unlike the furious swordsman from the darkness that she thought she’d been mistaken.

“In haste?” Chelubey said to Vasya, with a most graceful bow. His glance went to Marya, half hidden and squirming in Vasya’s cloak. He looked amused. “I would not dream of detaining you. But I believe I have seen your horse before.”

“I am Vasilii Petrovich,” Vasya replied, inclining her head stiffly in turn. “I cannot imagine where you could have seen my horse. I must be going.”

Solovey started off. But Chelubey’s two men put hands to blades and blocked his way.

Vasya turned back, trying for nonchalance, but she was beginning to be frightened. “Let me pass,” she said. Movement had all but ceased in the square. The sun was rising quickly; soon the streets would become crowded. She and Masha must get back, and in the meantime she did not care at all for the Tatar’s look of smiling threat.

“I am quite sure,” said Chelubey meditatively, “that I have seen that horse before. One glance and I knew him.” He pretended to think. “Ah,” he said, flicking a speck off his gorgeous sleeve. “It comes to me. A forest, late at night. Curiously, I met a stallion there, that had gotten loose. A stallion twin to yours.”

The wide, dark eyes fastened on hers, and Vasya knew that she was not mistaken.

“You say it was dark,” Vasya returned at length. “It is hard to know a horse again, that you have only seen in the dark. You must have seen some other—this one is mine.”

“I know what I saw,” said Chelubey. He was looking at her very hard. “As do you, I think, boy.”

His men nudged their horses nearer. He knows I know, Vasya thought. This is his warning.

Solovey was bigger than the Tatar horses, and likely quicker; he could bull through. But the men had bows, and there was Masha to think of…

“I will buy your horse,” said Chelubey.

Surprise startled a thoughtless answer from her. “For what purpose?” she demanded. “He wouldn’t carry you. I am the only one who can ride him.”

The Tatar smiled a little. “Oh, he would carry me. Eventually.”

Inside the cloak, Marya made a sound of muffled protest. “No,” Vasya said, loud enough for the square to hear. Anger allowed only one answer. “No, you can’t buy him. Not for anything.”

Her answer rippled out through the merchants, and she saw the faces change, some shocked, some approving.