The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy #2)(76)

A red edge of sun was just showing over the city walls as Kasyan came into Olga’s dooryard, dressed in silver and gray and fawn, with embroidery on the tilted toes of his boots. He halted at the paddock-fence. Vasya glanced up to find him watching her.

She bore his stare easily. She could bear any gaze after Morozko’s the night before.

“Well met, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said. A little sweat curled the hair at his temples. Vasya wondered if he was nervous. What man wouldn’t be, who had agreed to pit some ordinary horse against Solovey? The thought almost made her smile.

“A fair morning, lord,” Vasya returned, bowing.

Kasyan spared a glance at Solovey. “A groom could make the horse ready, you know. You needn’t dirty yourself.”

“Solovey would not take a groom’s hand,” Vasya said shortly.

He shook his head. “I meant no offense, Vasya. Surely we know each other better than that.”

Did they? She nodded.

“Fortunate boy,” Kasyan said, with another glance at Solovey. “To be so beloved of a horse. Why is that, do you think?”

“Porridge,” Vasya said. “Solovey cannot resist it. What have you come to say to me, Kasyan Lutovich?”

At that, Kasyan leaned forward. Vasya had an arm hooked over Solovey’s back. The horse’s nostrils flared; he stirred uneasily. Kasyan’s eyes caught hers and held them. “I like you, Vasilii Petrovich,” he said. “I have liked you from the moment I saw you, before I knew who you were. You must come south to Bashnya Kostei in the spring. My horses number as the blades of grass, and you may ride them all.”

“I would like that,” said Vasya, though she knew she would be far away in the spring. “If the Grand Prince gives me leave.” For a moment she wished it were true. Horses like blades of grass…

Kasyan’s eye ran over her as though he could dive into her soul and steal her secrets. “Come home with me,” he said low, a new emotion in his voice. “I will give you all you desire. I must only tell you—”

What did he mean? He never finished. At that moment, several horses came rattling through the gate, and a small cavalcade galloped, shouting, across the dooryard, pursued by the angry steward.

Vasya wondered what Kasyan had meant. Tell her what?

Then the young boyars of Dmitrii’s following were all around; the ones who had called their insults in the hall, and jostled her in challenge. They managed their plunging horses between their fur-clad knees, and their bits and stirrups made a warlike music. “Boy!” they called, and “Wolf-cub! Vasya!” They shouted their ribald jokes. One reached down and elbowed Kasyan, asking how it would feel to be beaten by that stripling boy, whose coat hung off him like laundry and whose horse wore no bridle.

Kasyan laughed. Vasya wondered if she had imagined the raw feeling in his voice.

At length the young boyars were persuaded to depart. Outside that snow-filled paddock, outside Vladimir’s wooden gates, the city shook itself awake. A shriek rang out from the tower above, quelled by a slap and a sharp rejoinder. The air smelled of wood-smoke and hundreds of cakes baking.

Kasyan lingered still, a line between his red brows. “Vasya,” he began again. “Last night—”

“Have you no horse to see to yourself?” Vasya asked sharply. “We are rivals now; are we to share confidences?”

Kasyan, mouth twisted, looked her in the face a moment. “Will you—” he began.

But again he was interrupted by a visitor, this one dressed plainly as a sparrow. His hood was up against the chill, his face stern. Vasya swallowed, turned, and bowed. “Brother,” she said.

“Forgive me, Kasyan Lutovich,” said Sasha. “I wish to speak to Vasya alone.”

Sasha looked as though he had been awake a great while, or had never gone to bed.

“God be with you,” Vasya said to Kasyan in polite farewell.

Kasyan looked for a moment taken aback. Then he said, in a cold, strange voice, “You would have done better to heed me,” and stalked away.

A small silence fell when he had gone. That man smells strange, said Solovey.

“Kasyan?” Vasya asked. “How?”

Solovey shook his mane. Dust, he said. And lightning.

“What did Kasyan mean?” Sasha asked her.

“I have no idea,” Vasya replied honestly. She peered into her brother’s face. “What have you been doing?”

“I?” he said. He leaned wearily on the fence. “I am looking for rumors about this man Chelubey, the ambassador of Mamai. Great lords do not just emerge from the woods. In all this city someone should have heard tell of him, even fourth-hand. But for all his magnificence, I can get no news at all.”

“And so?” Vasya rejoined. Green eyes met gray.

“Chelubey has the letter, the horses, the men,” said Sasha slowly. “But he has not the reputation.”

“So you suspect the ambassador is a bandit now, do you?” Vasya asked childishly. “Do you believe me at last?”

Her brother sighed. “If I can come to no better explanation, then yes, I will believe you. Although I have never heard of such a thing.” He paused and added, almost to himself, “If a bandit—or whoever he is—has duped us all so thoroughly, then he must have had help. Where did he get money and scribes and papers and horses and finery to pass himself off as a Tatar lord? Or would the Khan send us such a man? Surely not.”