The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

I saw a shadow, said the mare. And it had teeth. There was no time for more. A confusion of voices came from the top of the ditch. A small avalanche of rocks heralded the appearance of Kyril Artamonovich. Mysh shied. Kyril was staring.

Vasya’s face burned. “The mare’s had a fright,” the girl said hurriedly, catching hold of Mysh’s bridle. “You smell of blood, Kyril Artamonovich; best you stay up there.”

Kyril had no intention of sliding down into the mud and water, but even so Vasya’s words did not sweeten him. “You stole my horse.”

Vasya had the grace to look abashed.

“Who taught you to ride like that?”

Vasya swallowed, measuring his horrified expression. “My father taught me,” she said.

Her betrothed looked gratifyingly shocked.

She scrambled out of the ditch. The mare followed her like a kitten. The girl paused at the top. Kyril gave her a stony stare. “Perhaps I can ride all your horses, when we are married,” Vasya said innocently.

Kyril did not answer.

Vasya shrugged—and only then realized how tired she was. Her legs were weak as reed-stems, and her left shoulder—the arm she had used to yank Seryozha over Ogon’s back—ached.

A cluster of riders was racing across the ragged field. Pyotr led them on sure-footed Buran. Vasya’s brothers rode at his heel. Kolya was first off his horse; he leaped down and ran to his son, who was weeping still. “Seryozha, are you all right?” he demanded. “Synok, what happened? Seryozha!” The child did not answer. Kolya turned on Vasya. “What happened?”

Vasya did not know what to say. She stammered something. Her father and Alyosha dismounted in Kolya’s wake. Pyotr’s urgent glance darted from her, to Seryozha, to Ogon and Mysh. “Are you all right, Vasya?” he said.

“Yes,” Vasya managed. She flushed. Their neighbors—all men—were galloping up now. They stared. Vasya was suddenly, flinchingly aware of her bare head and torn skirts, her dirty face. Her father stepped across to murmur a quiet word to Kolya, who was holding his weeping son.

Vasya had let fall her cloak in her wild charge; now Alyosha slid off his horse and put his own about her. “Come on, fool,” he said, while she fastened his cloak gratefully. “Best get you out of view.”

Vasya recalled her pride and lifted her chin a stubborn fraction. “I am not ashamed. Better to have done something than see Seryozha dead of a cracked skull.”

Pyotr heard her. “Go with your brother,” he growled, rounding on her unexpectedly. “Now, Vasya.”

Vasya stared at her father, and then, without a word, let Alyosha boost her into the saddle. Muttering swelled among their neighbors. They were all gazing avidly. Vasya clenched her fists, and refused to drop her eyes.

But their neighbors did not have much time to gape. Alyosha swung on behind her, spurred his beast and galloped away. “Are you ashamed, Lyoshka?” asked Vasya, with heavy scorn. “Will you lock me in the cellar now? Better our nephew dead than I bring shame on the family?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Alyosha shortly. “This will blow over faster if they don’t have your torn dress to stare at.”

Vasya said nothing.

More gently, her brother added, “I’m taking you to Dunya. You looked ready to fold up where you stood.”

“I won’t deny it.” Her voice had softened.

Alyosha hesitated. “Vasochka, what did you do? I knew you could ride, but…like that? On that mad red colt?”

“The horses taught me,” Vasya said, after a pause. “I used to take them out of the pasture.”

She didn’t elaborate. Her brother was silent a long time. “We would be bringing our nephew back dead or broken if you hadn’t rescued him,” he said, slowly. “I know it, and I am grateful for it. Father, too, surely.”

“Thank you,” Vasya whispered.

“But,” he added, in tones of light irony, “I fear you are for a hut in the woods, if you don’t want to take the veil or marry a farmer. Your warrior’s ways have quite put off our neighbor. Kyril was humiliated when you took his horse.”

Vasya laughed, but there was a hard note in it. “I am glad,” she said. “I am saved from running away before my wedding. I’d have married a peasant before that Kyril Artamonovich. But Father is angry.”

Just as the house came in sight, Pyotr rode up beside them. He looked grateful and exasperated and angry and something darker. It might have been worry. He cleared his throat. “You aren’t hurt, Vasochka?”

Vasya hadn’t heard that endearment from him since she was small. “No,” she said. “But I am sorry to have shamed you, Father.”

Pyotr shook his head, but did not speak. There was a long pause.

“Thank you,” Pyotr said at last. “For my grandson.”

Vasya smiled. “We should be grateful to Ogon,” she said, feeling more cheerful. “And that Seryozha had the presence of mind to hold on as long as he did.”

They rode home in silence. Vasya quickly took herself off to hide in the bathhouse and steam her aching limbs.

But Kyril went to Pyotr that evening at dinner. “I thought I was getting a well-bred maiden, not a wild creature.”

“Vasya is a good girl,” said Pyotr. “Headstrong, but that can be—”

Kyril snorted. “Black magic might have held that girl on my horse’s back, but no mortal art.”

“Strength only, and wildness,” said Pyotr, a little desperately. “She will give you strong sons.”

“At what price?” said Kyril Artamonovich, darkly. “I want a woman in my house, not a witch or a wood-sprite. Besides, she shamed me before all your company.”

And though Pyotr tried to reason with him, he would not be swayed.

Pyotr rarely beat his children. But when Kyril broke off his betrothal, he thrashed Vasya all the same, mostly to assuage his own fear for her. Can she not do as she’s told for once in her life?

They only come for the wild maiden.

Vasya bore it dry-eyed and gave him only a look of reproach before she walked stiffly away. He did not see her weeping afterward, curled between Mysh’s forefeet.

But there was no wedding. At dawn, Kyril Artamonovich rode away.

When Kyril had gone, Anna Ivanovna went again to her husband. Already the long nights hemmed in the autumn days; the household rose in the dark and supped by firelight. That night, Pyotr sat wakeful before the oven. His children had sought their beds, but sleep eluded him. The embers of the banked fire filled the room with red. Pyotr stared into the shimmering maw and thought of his daughter.

Anna had her mending on her lap, but she was not sewing. Pyotr never looked up, and so he did not see his wife’s face, hard and bloodless. “So Vasilisa will not marry,” she said.

Pyotr started. His wife spoke with authority; she reminded him, for the first time, of her father. And her words echoed his thought.

“No man of good birth will have her,” she continued. “Will you give her to a peasant?”

Pyotr was silent. He had been turning the question over in his mind. It went against his pride, to give his daughter to a baseborn man. But ever in his ear rang Dunya’s warning: Better anything than a frost-demon.