The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

A woman came from the kitchen, gap-toothed and fat with the remains of summer’s bounty. Her face had a rose’s sere beauty, when it is past its best and the petals are yellowing. “What will you have, boy?” she asked.

Vasya licked her lips and spoke up boldly, like the boy Vasilii Petrovich. “Grain and stabling for my horse,” she said. “Food and a bath for myself. If you please.”

The lady waited, arms crossed. Vasya, realizing that something must be traded for these delights, reached into a pocket and handed the inn-wife a piece of silver.

The woman’s eyes grew round as cart-wheels and her manner at once softened. Vasya realized that she had given too much, but it was too late. The inn-yard was flung into motion. Vasya led Solovey into the tiny stable (he would allow no stablehand near him). The stallion suffered himself to be tied for show to the common rail and was even sweetened by another honeycake and a flake of hay, brought tremblingly by the stable-lad.

“My horse must have a bowl of porridge, still warm,” Vasya told the boy. “And leave him alone otherwise.” She strode out of the stable with a fair show of confidence. “He bites.”

Solovey obligingly laid his ears back, whereupon the stable-lad squeaked and ran for porridge.

Vasya took off her cloak in the well-kept kitchen and sat down on the bench beside the oven, blessing the heat. Why not stay here the night—or three? she wondered. I am in no hurry.

The food came in waves: cabbage soup and hot bread, smoked fish with the head on, porridge and pasty, and eggs cooked hard. Vasya ate until even the stolid inn-wife’s eyes misted at the hunger of growing boys. She gave Vasya a great slab of milk baked with honey to eat with her mug of beer.

When at last Vasya sagged on the bench, the woman tapped her on the shoulder and told her the bath was ready.

The bathhouse was only two little rooms, dirt-floored. Vasya stripped in the outer room, pushed open the door to the inner room, and breathed greedily of the heat. In a corner of this room stood a round oven made all of stone, with a fire lit and drawing. Vasya ladled water onto the rocks and steam billowed up in a great concealing fog. She sank delightedly onto a bench and closed her eyes.

A soft scraping noise came from the vicinity of the door. Vasya’s eyes shot open.

A little naked creature stood just inside the threshold. His beard floated like steam, framing his red cheeks. When he smiled, the eyes disappeared into the folds of his face.

Vasya watched him warily. This could be no other than the bannik, the bathhouse-guardian, and banniki could be both kind and quick to anger.

“Master,” she said politely, “forgive my intrusion.” This bannik was strangely gray; his fat little body looked more like smoke than flesh.

Perhaps, Vasya thought, towns do not agree with him.

Or perhaps the constant church-bell reminded folk too often that banniki should not exist. The thought made her sad.

But this bannik still considered her in silence, with small, clever eyes, and Vasya knew what she must do next. She got up and poured out some hot water from the bucket on the stove, broke off a good birch-branch and laid it before him, then added more water to the rocks on the seething oven.

The chyert, still unspeaking, smiled at her, climbed up to the other bench, and lay back in companionable silence. His cloudy beard writhed with the steam. Vasya decided to take his silence for permission to stay. Her eyelids drooped shut again.

Perhaps a quarter-hour later, she was sweating freely, and the steam had begun to die down. She was about to go drench herself in cold water when the squeal of a furious stallion ripped through her heat-sodden senses. A resounding crash followed; it sounded as though Solovey had come bodily through the stable wall. Vasya came gasping upright.

The bannik was frowning.

A scraping noise at the outer door, and then the sound of the inn-wife’s voice, “Yes, a boy with a big bay horse, but I don’t see why you have to—”

Thick silence followed the inn-wife’s outraged shriek. The bannik bared its foggy teeth. Vasya was on her feet and reaching for the door. But before she could lift the latch, a heavy step sounded on the floor of the outer room.

Stark naked, she stared wildly around the little shed. But there was only one door, and no windows.

The door thundered open. At the last instant Vasya shook her hair forward, so that it provided meager concealment. A bar of watery daylight pierced her flinching eyes; she stood sweating in nothing but her hair.

The man at the door took a moment to pick her out of the steam. A look of surprise crossed his face, then one of oafish delight.

Vasya pressed herself against the far wall, terrified, mortified, the inn-wife’s shriek still ringing in her ears. Outside, Solovey bugled again, and there was more shouting.

Vasya struggled to think. Perhaps the man would leave her an opening to dart around him. A voice in the anteroom and a second hulking figure answered that question.

“Well,” said the second man, looking startled, but not displeased. “This is not a boy at all but a maiden—unless it’s a water-nymph. Shall we find out which?”

“I go first,” his companion retorted, not taking his eyes from Vasya. “I found her.”

“Well, then, catch her, and don’t be all day about it,” said the second man. “We have that boy to find.”

Vasya bared her teeth, hands shaking, mind blank with panic.

“Come here, girl,” said the first man, wiggling his fingers as though she were a dog. “Come here. Relax. I’ll be good to you.”

Vasya was calculating chances, wondering whether, if she flung herself on the first man, he might fall against the oven. She had to get to Solovey. Her hair fell a little away from her throat and the jewel gleamed between her breasts. The first man’s eye fell on it, and he licked his lips. “Where’d you steal that?” he said. “Well, never mind, I’ll have it, too. Come here.” He took a step forward.

She tensed to spring. But she had forgotten the bannik.

A gush of hot water came flying out of nowhere and doused the man from head to heel. He fell back screaming, tripped on the red-hot oven, struck his head with a crack, and went limp, sizzling horribly.

The second man stared, dumbfounded, even as another gout of water slapped him across the face. He stumbled backward, shrieking, and was driven from the bathhouse, flogged by an invisible hand wielding a birch stick.

Vasya dashed into the outer room. She flung on leggings, shirt, boots, and tunic and slung her cloak around her shoulders. The clothes clung to her sweating skin. The bannik waited in the doorway, silent still, but smiling now, viciously. The shouting outside had risen to a furious pitch. Vasya paused an instant and bowed low.

The creature bowed back.

Vasya ran outside. Solovey had broken out of the stable. Three men stood around him, not daring to come too near. “Get his rope!” cried a man from the arch of the gate. “Hold fast! The others are coming.”

A fourth man, who had clearly attempted to seize the rope dangling from Solovey’s neck, lay motionless on the ground with a great, seeping dent in his skull.

Solovey saw Vasya and hurled himself toward her. The men dodged, shouting, and in that moment, Vasya vaulted to the horse’s back.

Outside, more shouts rang out, the crunch of running feet. More men ran into the inn-yard, stringing their bows.