The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

“We’ll need hot water,” Vasya said.

“Get him to speak as soon as you can,” said Pyotr. “His village is two days distant. I cannot think what disaster would bring him here at midwinter.”

Vasya and Irina spent an hour rubbing the man’s hands and feet and pouring hot broth down his throat. Even when his strength returned, all he would do was huddle by the oven, gasping. Finally he took food, gulping it down scalding-hot. Pyotr bit back his impatience. At last the messenger wiped his mouth and looked fearfully at his liege lord.

“What brings you here, Nikolai Matfeevich?” demanded Pyotr.

“Pyotr Vladimirovich,” the man whispered, “we are going to die.”

Pyotr’s face darkened.

“Two nights since, our village caught fire,” said Nikolai. “There is nothing left. If you do not take pity, we are all going to die. Many of us have died already.”

“Fire?” said Alyosha.

“Yes,” said Nikolai. “A spark fell from an oven, and the whole village went up. An ill wind was blowing, and such a wind—too warm for midwinter. We could do nothing. I left as soon as we had dug the living from the ashes. I heard them scream when the snow touched their skin—better perhaps if they had died. I walked all day and all night—such a night—with terrible voices in the wood. It seemed the screams followed me. I did not dare to stop, for fear of the frost.”

“It was bravely done,” said Pyotr.

“Will you help us, Pyotr Vladimirovich?”

There was a long silence. He cannot go, thought Vasya. Not now. But she knew what her father would say. These were his lands, and he was their lord.

“My son and I will ride back with you tomorrow,” said Pyotr heavily, “with such men and beasts as can be spared.”

The messenger nodded. His eyes were far away. “Thank you, Pyotr Vladimirovich.”

THE NEXT DAY DAWNED in a dazzle of blue and white. Pyotr ordered the horses saddled at first light. The men who would not ride laced snowshoes to their feet. The winter sun shone coldly down. Great white plumes curled from the horses’ nostrils like the breath of serpents, and icicles dangled from their whiskery chins. Pyotr took Buran’s rein from the servant. The horse stretched out his lip and shook his head, the ice rattling in his whiskers.

Kolya crouched in the snow, eye to eye with Seryozha. “Let me come with you, Father,” pleaded the child. His hair fell into his eyes. He had come out leading his brown pony and wearing every garment he possessed. “I am big enough.”

“You are not big enough,” said Kolya, looking harried.

Irina hurried out of the house. “Come,” she said, taking the child by the shoulder. “Your papa is going; come away.”

“You’re only a girl,” said Seryozha. “What do you know? Please, Papa.”

“Go back to the house,” said Kolya, stern now. “Put your pony away and listen to your aunt.”

But Seryozha did not; instead he howled and bolted, startling the horses, and disappeared behind the stable. Kolya rubbed his face. “He’ll come back when he’s hungry.” He heaved himself onto his own horse’s back.

“God be with you, brother,” said Irina.

“And you, sister,” said Kolya. He clasped her hand and turned away.

Cold leather creaked as the men put up the horses’ girths and checked the bindings of their snowshoes. Their steaming breath thickened the icy bristles in their beards. Alyosha stood at the edge of the dvor, a look of thunder on his good-natured face. “You must stay,” Pyotr had said to him. “Someone must look after your sisters.”

“You will need me, Father,” he had said.

Pyotr shook his head. “I will sleep easier if you are guarding my girls. Vasya is rash and Irina is fragile. And Lyoshka, you must keep Vasya at home. For her own sake. There is an ugly mood in the village. Please, my son.”

Alyosha shook his head, wordless. But he did not ask again.

“Father,” said Vasya. “Father.” She appeared at Buran’s head, face strained, her hair very black against the pale fur of her hood. “You must not go. Not now.”

“I must, Vasochka,” Pyotr said, wearily. She had begged the night before. “It is my place, and they are my people. Try to understand.”

“I understand,” she said. “But there is evil in the wood.”

“These are evil times,” said Pyotr. “But I am their lord.”

“There are dead things in the wood—the dead are walking. Father, the woods are dangerous.”

“Nonsense, Vasya,” snapped Pyotr. Mother of God. If she started spreading such stories about the village…

“Dead,” said Vasya again. “Father, you must not go.”

Pyotr seized her shoulder, hard enough to make her flinch. All about him, his men were clustered and waiting. “You are too old for fairy tales,” he growled, trying to make her see.

“Fairy tales!” said Vasya. It came out a strangled cry. Buran threw his head up. Pyotr got a better grip on the stallion’s rein and settled the horse. Vasya flung her father’s hand aside. “You saw Father Konstantin’s broken window,” she said “You cannot leave the village. Father, please.”

The men could not hear everything, but they heard enough. Their faces showed pale beneath the beards. They stared at Pyotr’s daughter. More than one glanced toward his wife or his children, standing small and valiant against the snow. There would be no ruling them, Pyotr thought, if his foolish daughter kept on. “You are not a child, Vasya, to take fright at tales,” Pyotr snapped. He spoke calmly and crisply, to reassure the men. “Alyosha, take your sister in hand. Do not be afraid, dochka,” he said, lower and more gently. “We shall win a brave victory; this winter will pass like the others. Kolya and I will come back to you. Be kind to Anna Ivanovna.”

“But, Father—”

Pyotr sprang to Buran’s back. Vasya’s hand closed on the horse’s headstall. Anyone else would have been yanked off his feet and trampled, but the stallion pricked his ears at the girl and stood.

“Let go, Vasya,” said Alyosha, coming up beside her. She didn’t move. He laid a hand on hers where it wrapped round the bridle, and bent to whisper in her ear: “Now is not the time. The men will break. They are afraid for their houses and they are afraid of demons. Besides, if Father heeds you, they will say he was ruled by his maiden daughter.”

Vasya sucked a breath between her teeth, but she let go of Buran’s bridle. “Better to believe me,” she muttered.

Released, the brave, aging stallion reared up. The subdued men fell in behind Pyotr. Kolya saluted his brother and sister as the party trotted out into the white world, leaving the two alone in the stable-yard.

THE VILLAGE SEEMED VERY QUIET when the riders had left. The icy sun shone gaily down. “I believe you, Vasya,” said Alyosha.

“You drove the stake in with your own hand; of course you believe me, fool.” Vasya paced like a wolf in a cage. “I should have told Father everything.”

“But we slew the upyr,” said Alyosha.

Vasya shook her head helplessly. She remembered the rusalka’s warning, and the leshy’s. “It is not over,” she said. “I was warned: beware the dead.”