The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy #2)(56)
“Tell me,” Sasha asked abruptly. “Did my father have a great stallion in his stable, bay in color, with a long mane and a star on his face?”
Whatever question Konstantin had been expecting, it was not that. His eyes narrowed. But—“No,” he said, after a moment. “No—Pyotr Vladimirovich had many horses, but not one like that.”
And yet, Sasha thought. You fair snake, you remembered something. You are telling me lies, mixed with truth.
As Vasya did?
Damn them both. I want only to know how my father died!
Looking into the priest’s gray-hollowed face, Sasha knew he would get no more from him. “Thank you, Batyushka,” he said abruptly. “Pray for me; I must go.”
Konstantin bowed and made the sign of the cross. Sasha strode down the gallery, feeling as though he had touched a slimy thing and wondering why he should feel afraid of a poor pious priest, who had answered all his questions with that air of sorrowful honesty, in a deep and glorious voice.
VASYA WAS SCRUBBED TO her pores by the efficient Varvara, who was perfectly in her mistress’s confidence and perfectly unflappable. Even Vasya’s sapphire pendant only elicited a scornful snort. There was something naggingly familiar about the woman’s face. Or maybe it was only her briskness that reminded Vasya of Dunya. Varvara washed Vasya’s filthy hair and dried it beside the roaring stove in the bathhouse. “You ought to cut this off—boy,” she said drily, as she braided it up.
Vasya frowned. Her stepmother’s voice would always live in some knotted-up place inside her, shrilling “Skinny, gawky, ugly girl,” but even Anna Ivanovna had never criticized the red-lit black of Vasya’s hair. Yet Varvara’s voice had held a faint note of disdain.
“Midnight, when the fire is dying,” Vasya’s childhood nurse Dunya had said of it, when she had gotten old and inclined to fondness. Vasya also remembered how she had combed her hair by the fire while a frost-demon watched, though he seemed not to.
“No one will see my hair,” Vasya said to Varvara. “I wear hoods all the time, and hats, too. It is winter.”
“Foolishness,” said the slave.
Vasya shrugged, stubborn, and Varvara said no more.
Olga appeared after Vasya’s bath, thin-lipped and pale, to help her sister dress. Dmitrii himself had sent the kaftan: worked in green and gold, fit for a princeling. Olga carried it on one arm. “Do not drink the wine,” the Princess of Serpukhov said, slipping unceremoniously into the hot bathhouse. “Only pretend. Do not speak. Stay with Sasha. Come back as soon as you can.” She laid out the kaftan, and Varvara produced a fresh shirt and leggings and Vasya’s own boots, hastily cleaned.
Vasya nodded, breathless, wishing she might have come to Olga a different way, so that they could laugh together as they used to, and her sister would not be angry.
“Olya—” she said, tentatively.
“Not now, Vasya,” Olga said. She and Varvara were already arranging Vasya’s clothes with brisk and impersonal skill.
Vasya fell silent. She had a child’s memories of her sister feeding chickens, hair straggling out of its plait. But this woman had a queenly beauty, regal and remote, enhanced by fine clothes, a headdress, and the weight of her unborn child.
“I haven’t the time,” Olga went on more gently, with a glance at Vasya’s face. “Forgive me, sister, but I can do no more. Maslenitsa will begin at sundown, and I must see to my own household. You are Sasha’s concern for the week. There is a room waiting for you in the men’s part of this palace. Do not sleep anywhere else. Bolt your door. Hide your hair. Be wary. Do not meet any women’s eyes; I do not want the cleverer ones to recognize you when I eventually take you into the terem as my sister. I will speak to you again when the festival has ended. We will send Vasilii Petrovich home as soon as we may. Now go.”
The last tie was fastened; Vasya was dressed as a Muscovite princeling. A fur-lined hat was pulled low over her brows, over a leather hood that concealed her hair.
Vasya felt the justice of Olga’s planning but also the coldness. Hurt, she opened her mouth, met her sister’s unyielding stare, closed it again, and went.
Behind her Olga and Varvara exchanged a long look.
“Send word to Lesnaya Zemlya,” said Olga. “Secretly. Tell my brothers that our sister is alive and that I have her.”
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when Sasha met Vasya at the prince of Serpukhov’s gate. They turned together and began steadily to climb. The kremlin was built on the crest of a hill, with the cathedral and the Grand Prince’s palace sharing the apex.
The street was rutted and winding, choked with snow. Vasya watched her feet, to keep her boots out of all manner of filth, and had to scramble to keep up with Sasha. Solovey was right, she thought, dodging people, a little frightened of their impersonal hurry. That other town, that was nothing to this.
Then she thought, sadly, I will not live in the terem. I am going to run away before they try to make me a girl again. Have I seen my sister for the first time in years, and the last time forever? And she is angry with me.
The guards saluted them at the gate of Dmitrii’s palace. Brother and sister passed within, crossed the dooryard—bigger, finer, noisier, and filthier than Olya’s—climbed a staircase, and then began a trek through room after room: fair as a fairy tale, though Vasya had not expected the stink or the dust.