The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

Sasha opened his mouth to reply, realized that he did not know, and fell silent. “Come, Masha,” he said only. “I will take you home.”

They rode back to Olga’s palace through the deserted streets, with the muck of people’s flight slowly covered by fast-falling snow. Marya put out her tongue to taste the whirling snowflakes, and laughed in wonder. They could barely see their hands in front of their faces. Sasha, navigating the streets from memory, was glad to turn in to Olga’s gate, into the meager shelter of the half-deserted dooryard. The gate sagged open and many of the slaves had fled.

The dooryard was deserted, but Sasha heard the faint sound of chanting from the chapel. Well they might give thanks for deliverance. Sasha was about to dismount in the dooryard, but Solovey raised his head and pawed the slush.

The gate hung askew, its guards fled before the fire. A slender figure, alone, swaying, walked through it.

Solovey gave his deep, ringing neigh and jolted into motion. “Aunt Vasya!” Marya cried. “Aunt Vasya!”

Next moment, the great horse was nuzzling carefully over Vasya’s fire-smelling hair. Marya slid down Solovey’s shoulder and tumbled splashing into her aunt’s arms.

Vasya caught Marya, though her face went dead white when she did so, and lowered the child to the ground. “You’re all right,” Vasya whispered to her, holding her tight. Masha was weeping passionately. “You’re all right.”

Sasha slid from the stallion’s back and looked his sister over. The end of Vasya’s plait was singed, her face burned, her eyelashes gone. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she held herself stiffly. “What happened, Vasya?”

“Winter is over,” she said. “And we are all alive.”

She smiled at her brother, and began, in her turn, to cry.

VASYA WOULD NOT GO into the palace, would not leave Solovey. “Olga bade me go, and rightly,” she said. “She will not wish to see me again.”

And so Sasha reluctantly left his sister in the dooryard while he took Marya to find her mother. Olga had not fled the fire. Nor was she abed. She was in the chapel, praying with Varvara and her remaining women. They made a shivering, kneeling flock near the iconostasis.

But the second Marya’s foot stirred the threshold, Olga raised her head. She was pale as death. Varvara caught her, helped her rise, staggering. “Masha!” Olga whispered.

“Mother!” shrieked Marya then, and flew across the intervening space. Olga caught her daughter and embraced her, though her lips went white with pain and Varvara held her up, so that she not crumple to the floor.

“You should be abed, Olya,” said Sasha. Varvara, though she said nothing, looked as if she heartily agreed.

“I came to pray,” Olga returned, gray with exhaustion. “I could do nothing else…What happened?” She ran a feverish hand over her daughter’s hair, holding her close. “Half my slaves fled the fire; the other half I sent looking for her. I was sure she was dead. I had them take Daniil safe away, but I couldn’t—” Olga was not crying; her composure held, but it was a near thing. She stroked her hand again and again over her daughter’s head. “We came back from the bathhouse,” she finished, pale, breathing in short gasps, “and Marya was gone. The nurse had fled, and most of the guards. The city was on fire.”

“Vasya found her,” said Sasha. “Vasya saved her. It is not the child’s fault; she was stolen from her bed. God saved the city, for the wind turned and it began to snow.”

“Where is Vasya?” Olga whispered.

“Outside,” said Sasha wearily, “with her horse. She will not come in. She believes herself unwelcome.”

“Take me to her,” Olga said.

“Olya, you are not fit. Go to bed; I will bring—”

“Take me to her, I said!”

VASYA STOOD IN THE DOORYARD, leaning exhausted against Solovey. She did not know what to do; she did not know where to go. It was like thinking in deep water. Her dress was torn, burned, bloody. Her hair had come straggling out of its plait and hung about her face and throat and body, singed and frizzled at the end.

Solovey lifted his ears first, and then Vasya looked up and saw her brother and sister and niece coming toward her.

She went very still.

Olga was leaning heavily on Sasha’s arm, holding Marya by her other hand. Varvara followed them, frowning. Above Moscow, day was breaking. The clouds of winter had dissipated, and a light, fresh wind drove back the remainder of the smoke. Olga looked younger in the soft morning light. She raised her face to the breeze and a hint of color touched her cheekbones.

“It smells of spring,” she murmured.

Vasya gathered her courage and went to meet them. Solovey walked with her, his nose at her shoulder.

Vasya halted a long pace from her sister and bowed her head.

Silence. Vasya looked up. Solovey had stretched out his nose, delicately, toward her sister.

Olga was looking wide-eyed at the stallion. “This is—your horse?” she asked.

The question was so different from what Vasya expected that sudden laughter rose in her throat. Solovey was nibbling at Olga’s headdress now with a casual air. Varvara looked as though she wanted to tell him off, but hadn’t the nerve.

“Yes,” said Vasya. “This is Solovey.”

Olga reached out a jeweled hand and stroked the stallion’s nose.

Solovey snorted. Olga’s hand fell. She looked again at her sister.

“Come inside,” she said. “You will all come inside. Vasya, you are going to tell us everything.”

VASYA BEGAN WITH THE COMING of the priest to Lesnaya Zemlya and finished with the summoning of the snow. She did not lie, and she did not spare herself. The sun was peeping in the tower windows by the time she finished.

Varvara brought them stew and kept all away. Marya fell asleep, wrapped in a blanket beside the oven. The child would not consent to be taken to bed, and indeed neither her mother, her uncle, nor her aunt wanted her out of their sight.

Vasya’s tale ended, she sat back, her vision swimming with weariness.

There was a small silence. Then Olga said, “What if I don’t believe you, Vasya?”

Vasya returned, “I can offer you two proofs. The first is that Solovey understands the speech of men.”

“He does,” Sasha put in unexpectedly. The monk had sat silent as Vasya talked. “I rode him fighting in the prince’s dooryard. He saved my life.”

“And,” said Vasya, “this dagger was made for me by the winter-king.”

She drew her knife. It lay blue-hilted, pale-bladed in her grip, beautiful and cold, except—Vasya looked closer. Except that a thin drip of water ran off the blade, as though it were an icicle melting in spring…

“Put that ungodly thing away,” Olga snapped.

Vasya sheathed the knife. “Sister,” she said. “I have not lied. Not now. I will go away today—I will not trouble you again. Only I beg—I beg you will forgive me.”

Olya was biting her lips. She looked from her sleeping Marya to Sasha and back to Vasya. She said nothing for a long time.

“And Masha is the same as you?” Olga asked suddenly. “She sees—things? Chyerti?”