The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy 3)

Vasya glanced back, nodded, and walked on.

She would have expected Morozko’s prison to look something like the Bear’s clearing. Or perhaps a locked and guarded tower and he confined, like a princess, at the top of it. At least, she would have expected it to be a summer place: one where he was faint, powerless. But this was just a village. In winter. Gardens slept under snow; beasts drowsed in their warm stables. A single house in the very center streamed noise and light. Smoke poured from a hole in the roof. She could smell meat roasting.

How could Morozko be here?

Vasya climbed the palisade and crept toward the great house.

She was quite near when the fresh-fallen snow of its dooryard quivered and a chyert emerged. Vasya halted abruptly. It was the dvorovoi, the dooryard-guardian, and he was not tiny, like all the other dvoroviye she had ever known. He was as tall as she, his eyes fierce.

Vasya bowed, with wary respect.

“Stranger, what are you doing here?” he growled.

Her mouth and throat were dry, but she managed, “Grandfather, I am here for the feasting.” Not quite a lie. She was hungry; Ded Grib’s camp-rations seemed an age ago.

Silence. Then the dvorovoi said, “You have come a long way, only for the feasting.”

“I am also here for the winter-king,” she admitted, low. It was difficult to deceive a house-spirit, and unwise to try.

The dvorovoi’s eyes measured her. She held her breath. “Go through the door then,” he said simply, and vanished once more into the snow.

Could it be so simple? Impossible. But Vasya walked toward the door. Once she had loved feasts. Now all she heard was too much noise, all she smelled was fire. With an odd detachment, she looked down at her hand, realized that it was shaking.

Gathering her courage, she went up the stairs, between bars of lamplight. A dog began to bark. Then another, a third, a whole chorus. Next moment, the door opened, creaking in the cold.

But it was not a man who came out, or, what Vasya had feared, several men, with blades. It was a woman, alone. She was accompanied by a torrent of warm, smoky air, rich with the smell of cooking.

Vasya stood still, her whole being bent on not fleeing into the shadows.

The woman’s hair was the color of good bronze. Her eyes were like amber beads; she was almost as tall as Vasya. The grivna on her throat was gold; gold there was too on her wrists and ears, set on her belt, plaited in her hair.

Vasya knew how she must look to this woman: wild-eyed after the long darkness, lips trembling with cold and terror, clothes crackling with frost. She tried to sound eminently sane when she said, “God be with you,” but her voice was hoarse and faint.

“The domovoi said we had a visitor,” the woman said. “Who are you, stranger?”

The domovoi? Can she hear—? “I am a traveler,” Vasya said. “I came to ask supper and a place for the night.”

“What is a maiden doing, traveling alone at Midwinter? And dressed so?”

So much for her boy’s clothes. Vasya said carefully, “The world is not kind to a maiden alone. Safer to dress as a boy.”

The frown between the woman’s eyes deepened. “You have no sling, no pack, no beast. You are not dressed to spend even one night out of doors. Where have you come from, girl?”

“From the forest,” Vasya improvised. “I fell into the river and lost all I had.”

It was almost the truth. The woman’s brows drew together. “Then why—” She paused. “Can you see?” she asked in a different voice. She looked suddenly half-afraid, half-eager.

Vasya knew what she meant. Tell no one who you are. “No,” she said at once.

The eager light faded from the woman’s eyes. She sighed. “Well, it was too much to hope for. Come, there are lords visiting from all about, and their servants; you will not be noticed. You may eat in the hall, and have a warm place to sleep.”

“Thank you,” said Vasya.

The tawny woman opened the door. “I am Yelena Tomislavna,” she said. “The lord is my brother. Come.”

Vasya, heart beating very fast, followed her in. She could feel the dvorovoi at her back. Watching.

* * *

YELENA CAUGHT THE SHOULDER of a servant. A few words passed between them. All Vasya heard was “get back to our guest” from Yelena. A strange expression of sympathy crossed the face of the old servant.

Then the servant bustled Vasya into a cellar full of chests, bundles, and barrels. Muttering to herself, she began to rummage. “No harm will come to you here, poor maiden,” she said. “Take off those clothes; I will find you something proper.”

Vasya debated arguing, realized that it might get her thrown out. “As you say, babushka,” she said and began to strip. “But I would like to keep my old clothes.”

“Well, of course,” said the old servant kindly. “Never fling away wantonly.” Eyeing Vasya’s bruises, she clucked and said, “Husband or father’s handiwork, I care not. Bold girl, to dress as a boy and run away.” She turned Vasya’s cut face to the light, frowned dubiously. “Perhaps, if you stay here and work hard, the lord will give you a little dowry, and you may find a new husband.”

Vasya wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be vexed. The servant thrust a coarse linen shift over Vasya’s head. Over that went a length of cloth, hanging loose front and back, then belted. Bast shoes for her feet. The servant patted Vasya’s cropped black head and produced a kerchief. “What were you thinking, child, to cut your hair?”

“I was traveling as a boy,” Vasya reminded her. “Safer.” She slipped the wooden nightingale into the sleeve of her shift. The clothes smelled of onion and their previous owner, but they were warm.

“Come into the hall,” the servant said, after a pitying silence. “I will find you some supper.”

* * *

THE SMELL OF THE FEAST hit her first: of sweat and honey-wine and fat meat roasted in a great pit of coals at the center of a long hall. The room was packed with people, richly dressed; their ornaments gleamed copper and gold in the smoke-haze. The heat went up, making the air dance, to a hole in the center of the roof. A single star gleamed in the blackness, swallowed by the rising smoke. Servants bore in baskets of fresh bread, dusted with snow. Vasya, trying to peer in every direction at once, nearly tripped over a bitch-hound that had retired, growling, to a corner with her litter and a bone.

The serving-woman pushed Vasya down onto a bench. “Stay here,” she said, intercepting a loaf and a cup. “Sup at your leisure, and see what you can of the great folk. There will be feasting until dawn.” She seemed to mark the girl’s nerves, and added kindly, “No harm will come to you. You’ll be put to work soon enough.” With that she was gone. Vasya was left alone with her meal and a head full of questions.