The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

Pyotr did not like leading questions, and said so.

“Very well,” said the young man steadily. “The prince and his councilors have asked themselves why we should pay tribute anymore, or bend the knee to a pagan king. The last Khan was murdered, and his heirs cannot sit a twelvemonth on their thrones before they, too, are slain. They are all in disarray. Why should they be masters of good Christians? Brother Aleksandr has gone to Sarai, to judge their quality, and he has sent me to ask your help, should the Grand Prince choose to fight.”

Vasya saw her father’s face change and wondered what the young monk had said.

“War,” said Pyotr.

“Freedom,” Rodion rejoined.

“We wear the yoke lightly, here in the north,” said Pyotr.

“And yet you wear it.”

“Better a yoke than the fist of the Golden Horde,” said Pyotr. “They need not meet us in open battle, only send men in the night. Ten fire-arrows would burn Moscow to the ground, and my house is also made of wood.”

“Pyotr Vladimirovich, Brother Aleksandr bid me say—”

“Forgive me,” said Pyotr, rising abruptly, “but I have heard enough. I hope you will forgive me.”

Rodion had perforce to nod, and turn his attention to his mead.

“WHY SHOULD WE NOT FIGHT, FATHER?” Kolya demanded. Two dead rabbits dangled by the ears from his fist. Father and son were taking advantage of a break in the downpour to walk a trapline.

“Because I foresee little good in it, and much harm,” Pyotr replied, not for the first time. Neither of his sons had given him any peace since the monk had turned their heads with stories of their brother’s renown. “Your sister lives in Moscow; would you have her caught in a city under siege? When the Tatars invest a city, they do not leave survivors.”

Kolya dismissed the possibility with a wave, the rabbits jerking grotesquely at the end of his arm. “Of course we would meet them in battle well before the gates of Moscow.”

Pyotr bent to check the next snare, which was empty.

“And think, Father,” Kolya went on, warming to his theme, “we might send goods south in trade, not tribute. My cousin would kneel to no one: a prince in truth. Your great-grandchildren might be Grand Princes themselves.”

“I’d rather my sons living, and my daughters safe, than a chance at glory for unborn descendants.” Seeing his son’s mouth open on another protest, Pyotr added, more gently, “Synok, you know that Sasha left sorely against my will. I will not stoop to tying my own son to the door-post; if you wish to fight, you may go as well, but I will not bless a fool’s war, and no scrap of cloth or silver or horseflesh will I give you. Sasha, you remember, might be rich in renown, but he must beg his bread and tend the herbs in his own garden.”

Whatever Kolya might have replied was drowned by an exclamation of satisfaction, for yet another rabbit hung in a snare, its mottled autumn coat streaked with dirt. While his son bent to extricate it, Pyotr raised his head and went suddenly still. The air smelled of new death. Pyos, Pyotr’s boarhound, shrank against his master’s shins, whining like a puppy.

“Kolya,” said Pyotr. Something in his father’s tone sent the young man to his feet, a flash in his black eyes.

“I smell it,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “What ails the dog?” For Pyos whined and trembled and looked eagerly back toward the village. Pyotr shook his head; he was casting from side to side, almost like a scenthound himself.

He said no word, but pointed: a splash of blood in the leaf-litter around their feet, not the rabbit’s. Pyotr gestured peremptorily at the dog; the boarhound whined and slunk forward. Kolya hung a little to the left, owl-silent as his father. They came cautiously round a stand of trees, into a small, scrubby clearing, grim with decaying leaves.

It had been a buck. A haunch lay almost at Pyotr’s feet, trailing blood and tendon. The main part of the carcass lay a little way off, the entrails burst and spreading, stinking even in the cold.

The gore gave neither man pause, though the buck’s horned head lolled near their feet, tongue dangling. But they exchanged a speaking glance, for nothing in those woods could so mutilate a creature. And what beast would kill a fat autumn buck but leave the meat?

Pyotr squatted in the mud, eyes skimming the ground.

“The buck ran and the hunter gave chase; the buck had been running hard, and was favoring a foreleg. He bounded into the clearing—here.” Pyotr was moving as he spoke, half-crouched, “One leap, two—and then a blow from the side struck him down.” Pyotr paused. Pyos crouched on his belly at the very edge of the clearing, never taking his eyes off his master.

“But what struck the blow?” he muttered.

Kolya had read a similar tale in the mud. “No tracks,” he said. His long knife hissed as it slid free of its scabbard. “None. Nor any signs that someone tried to sweep them away.”

“Look to the dog,” said Pyotr. Pyos had risen from his crouch and was staring at a gap between the trees. Every hair on his rough-coated spine stood on end, and he was growling low between bared teeth. As one, both men spun, Pyotr’s knife in his hand almost before he willed it. Briefly he thought he saw movement, a darker shadow in the gloom, but then it was gone. Pyos barked once, high and sharp: a sound of fearful defiance.

Pyotr snapped his fingers at his dog. Kolya turned with him. They crossed the blood-smeared leaf-mold and made for the village without a word.

A DAY LATER, WHEN Rodion knocked on Konstantin’s door, the priest was inspecting his paints by candlelight. The ends and dribbles of mixed color turned to mold in the damp. There was daylight outside, but the priest’s windows were small and the roar of the rain held back the sun. The room would have been dim if not for the candles. Too many candles, Rodion thought. A terrible waste.

“Father, bless,” said Rodion.

“God be with you,” said Konstantin. The room was cold; the priest had wrapped a blanket round his thin shoulders. He did not offer Rodion one.

“Pyotr Vladimirovich and his sons have gone hunting,” said Rodion. “But they will not speak of their quarry. Said they nothing in your hearing?”

“Not in my hearing, no,” replied Konstantin.

The rain poured down without.

Rodion frowned. “I cannot imagine what they would bring their boar-spears for, while leaving the dogs behind. And this is cruel weather for riding.”

Konstantin said nothing.

“Well, God grant them success, whatever it is,” Rodion persevered. “I must leave in two days, and I do not care to meet whatever put that look in Pyotr Vladimirovich’s eye.”

“I will pray for your safety on the road,” said Konstantin curtly.

“God keep you,” replied Rodion, ignoring the dismissal. “I know you do not like your reflections disturbed. But I would ask your counsel, Brother.”

“Ask,” said Konstantin.

“Pyotr Vladimirovich wishes his daughter to take vows,” said Rodion. “He has charged me, with words and money, that I might go to Moscow, to the Ascension, and prepare them for her coming. He says she will be sent with the tribute-goods, as soon as there is enough snow for sledges.”

“A pious duty, Brother,” said Konstantin. But he had looked up from his paints. “What need of counsel?”