The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

Between the City and Evil

BROTHER ALEKSANDR LEFT HIS SISTER’S palace in the gray-blue hour before the sun rises. All around him, Moscow was stirring, sullenly. The city’s rage and wildness had shifted to a deeper unease. Dmitrii had every man he could spare in the streets—soldiers at the kremlin-gate, at the gate of his own palace, guarding the boyars’ houses—but their presence only seemed to feed the sense of dread.

A few people recognized Sasha, despite the hour, despite his hood. Once they would have asked him for his blessing; now they gave him black looks, and drew their children aside.

The witch’s brother.

Sasha strode on, lips set thin. Perhaps a better monk would have fixed his gaze on heavenly things, forgiven and forgotten, not mourned his sister’s torment, or his own lost reputation. But—if he had been a better monk he would have stayed in the Lavra.

The sun had made a copper rim on the horizon and water was running beneath the softening snow when Sasha passed the Grand Prince’s gate, and found Dmitrii in low-voiced conversation with three of his boyars. “God be with you,” said Sasha to them all. The boyars made the sign of the cross, identical troubled expressions half-hidden in their beards. Sasha could hardly blame them.

“The great families do not like it,” said Dmitrii when the boyars had bowed and left, and his attendants gone out of earshot. “Any of it. That a traitor came so close to killing me, that I lost control of the city last night. And—” Dmitrii paused. His hand toyed with his sword-hilt. “There are rumors that a demon was seen in Moscow.”

Sasha thought of Varvara’s warning. Perhaps Dmitrii expected him to scoff, but instead he asked, warily, “What nature of—demon?”

Dmitrii shot him a glance. “I know not. But that is why those three came to me so early and so uneasy; they heard the rumors too and fear that the city must be under some curse. They say that people talk of nothing now but devils, and of spoiling. They say that the only reason the city did not fall to evil last night was because a priest named Father Konstantin banished the demon. They are saying he is a saint, that he is the only one standing between this city and evil.”

“Lies,” said Sasha. “It was that same Father Konstantin yesterday who drove the city to riot and put my sister in the fire.”

Dmitrii’s eyes narrowed.

“His mob smashed the gates of my sister’s palace,” Sasha went on. “And he—” Sasha broke off. He stole my niece from her bed and gave her to the traitor, was what he wanted to say, but…No, Olga had said. Don’t you dare say aloud that my daughter left the terem that night. Get justice for Vasya if you can, but what do you think folk will say of Marya?

“Have you proof of this?” asked Dmitrii.

Once Sasha would have replied, Is my word not enough? Dmitrii would have answered, Yes it is, brother, and that would have been the end of argument. But a lie had come between them and so instead Sasha said, “There are witnesses that will place Father Konstantin among the mob at the palace of Serpukhov, and at the burning.”

Dmitrii didn’t answer directly. He said, “After I heard the rumors this morning, I sent men to the Monastery of the Archangel, with orders to escort the priest here. But he wasn’t at the monastery. He was in the Cathedral of the Assumption, with half the city attending him, praying and weeping. He chants like an angel, they say, and Moscow is full of tales of his beauty and his piety and how he freed the city from devils. All these rumors alone would make him dangerous, even if he is not the villain you make him out to be.”

“Since he is dangerous, why have you not arrested him?”

“Weren’t you listening?” demanded Dmitrii. “I can’t have a holy man dragged out of a cathedral before half of Moscow. No, he will come today by quiet invitation, and I will decide what to do.”

“He set the mob to break Serpukhov’s gates,” said Sasha. “There is only one thing to do with him.”

“Justice will be done, cousin,” returned Dmitrii. In his eyes was a warning. “However, it is for me to administer it, not you.”

Sasha said nothing. The dooryard was full of the sound of hammers, of men calling, of horses. Beyond was the murmur of the waking city. “I have ordered divine service sung,” Dmitrii added. Now he sounded tired. “I have set all the bishops to praying. I do not know what else we can do. Curse it, I am not a holy man, to answer questions of curses and devils. The people are unsettled enough without wicked rumors. There is the city to rebuild and Tatar bandits to find.”

* * *

ALL MOSCOW, IT SEEMED to Konstantin, followed him from the cathedral to the Grand Prince’s palace. Their voices pulled at him; their stink surrounded him. “I will return,” he told the people, before passing the gates. They waited outside, icons in their hands, praying aloud, better than a hundred guards.

Nonetheless, Konstantin’s sweat was cold as he crossed the dooryard. Dmitrii had guards of his own, heavily armed and watchful. The devil had not left Konstantin’s side since that morning; now he walked beside him, insouciant, invisible to all but the priest and looking about him with interest. The Bear was, Konstantin realized with a sinking feeling, enjoying himself.

All about the dooryard stood the wisps of small demons, hearth-creatures. Konstantin’s skin crawled, seeing them. “What do they want?”

The Bear smirked at the assembled devils. “They are afraid. The bells are blotting them out, year by year, but the destruction of their hearths will kill them quickly. They know what I am going to do.” The Bear bowed to them, ironic. “They are doomed,” he added cheerfully, as though to make sure they could hear, and strode on.

“Good riddance,” Konstantin muttered, and followed. The stares of the hearth-chyerti seemed to bore into his back.

There were two men waiting for him in the audience-chamber: Brother Aleksandr and Dmitrii Ivanovich, with Dmitrii’s attendants standing woodenly behind him. The place still smelled of smoke. One wall was scarred with sword-cuts, the paint hacked away.

Dmitrii sat in his carved chair. Brother Aleksandr stood, watchful, beside him.

“That one will kill you if he can,” remarked the Bear, with a jerk of his chin at Sasha. Sasha’s eyes narrowed; was it Konstantin’s imagination or did the monk’s gaze flicker from him to the devil beside him? He knew an instant of panic.

“Be easy,” added the Bear, eyes still on Sasha. “He has the same blood as the witch-girl. He senses what he cannot see, but that is all.” He paused. “Try not to get yourself killed, man of God.”

“Konstantin Nikonovich,” said Dmitrii coldly. Konstantin swallowed. “A girl, my kinswoman, was killed by fire yesterday, without trial. They are saying you set the mob of Moscow to do this. What have you to say?”