The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

With the Prince of Serpukhov came his cousin, the blond Dmitrii Ivanovich, calling out greetings. The princes had come with hawks and hounds and horses, with women in carved wooden carts, and they brought many gifts. The boys came also with a guardian: a clear-eyed monk, not very old, silent more often than speaking. The cavalcade raised a great noise and dust and clamor. The whole village came to gawk, and many to offer the hospitality of their huts to the men and pasture for the weary horses. The boy-prince Vladimir shyly slipped a sparkling green beryl onto Olga’s finger, and the whole house gave itself to mirth, as it had not since Marina breathed her last.

“THE BOY IS KIND, at least,” said Dunya to Olga in a rare quiet moment. They sat together beside the wide window in the summer kitchen. Vasya sat at Olga’s feet, listening and poking at her mending.

“Yes,” said Olga. “And Sasha is coming with me to Moscow. He will see me to my husband’s house before he joins his monastery. He has promised.” The beryl ring blazed on her finger. Her betrothed had also hung her throat with raw amber and given her a bolt of marvelous cloth, fiery as poppies. Dunya was hemming it for a sarafan. Vasya was only pretending to sew; her small hands were clenched in her lap.

“You will do very well,” said Dunya firmly, biting the end of a thread. “Vladimir Andreevich is rich, and young enough to take the advice of his wife. It was generous of him to come and marry you here, in your own house.”

“He came because the Metropolitan made him,” Olga interjected.

“And he stands high in the Grand Prince’s favor. He is young Dmitrii’s dearest friend, that is plain. He will have a high place when Ivan Krasnii is dead. You will be a great lady. You could not do better, my Olya.”

“Ye—es,” said Olga again, slowly. At her feet, Vasya’s dark head drooped. Olga bent to stroke her sister’s hair. “I suppose he is kind. But I…”

Dunya smiled sardonically. “Were you hoping that a raven-prince would come, like the bird in the fairy tale that came for Prince Ivan’s sister?”

Olga blushed and laughed, but she did not reply. Instead she picked up Vasilisa, though she was a great girl to be held like a child, and rocked her back and forth. Vasya curled rigid in her sister’s arms. “Hush, little frog,” said Olga, as though Vasya were a baby. “It will be all right.”

“Olga Petrovna,” said Dunya, “my Olya, fairy tales are for children, but you are a woman, and soon you will be a wife. To wed a decent man and be safe in his house, to worship God and bear strong sons—that is real and right. It is time to put aside dreaming. Fairy tales are sweet on winter nights, nothing more.” Dunya thought suddenly of pale cold eyes, and an even colder hand. Very well, until she is grown, but no longer. She shivered and added, lower, looking at Vasya, “Even the maidens of fairy tales do not always end happily. Alenushka was turned into a duck and watched the wicked witch butcher her duck-children.” And seeing Olga still downcast, smoothing Vasya’s hair, she added, a little harshly, “Child, it is the lot of women. I do not think you wish to be a nun. You might grow to love him. Your mother did not know Pyotr Vladimirovich before her wedding, and I remember her afraid, though your mother was brave enough to face down Baba Yaga herself. But they loved each other from the first night.”

“Mother is dead,” said Olga in a flat voice. “Another has her place. And I am going away forever.”

Against her shoulder, Vasya let out a muffled wail.

“She will never die,” retorted Dunya firmly. “Because you are alive, and you are as beautiful as she was, and you will be the mother of princes. Be brave. Moscow is a fair city, and your brothers will come to see you.”

THAT NIGHT, VASYA CAME to bed with Olga and said urgently, “Don’t go, Olya. I’ll never be bad again. I’ll never even climb trees.” She looked up at her sister, owl-like and trembling. Olga could not forbear a laugh, though it broke a little at the end. “I must, little frog,” she said. “He is a prince and he is rich and kind, as Dunya says. I must marry him or go to a convent. And I want children of my own, ten little frogs just like you.”

“But you have me, Olya,” Vasya said.

Olya pulled her close. “But you will grow up yourself one day and not be a child anymore. And what use will you have then for your tottering old sister?”

“Always!” Vasya burst out passionately. “Always! Let’s run away and live in the woods.”

“I’m not sure you’d like to live in the woods,” said Olga. “Baba Yaga might eat us.”

“No,” said Vasya, with perfect assurance. “There is only the one-eyed man. If we stay away from the oak-tree he will never find us.”

Olya did not know what to make of this.

“We will have an izba among the trees,” said Vasya. “And I will bring you nuts and mushrooms.”

“I have a better idea,” said Olya. “You are a great girl already, and it will not be too many years before you are a woman. I will send for you from Moscow when you are grown. We will be two princesses in a palace together, and you will have a prince for yourself. How would you like that?”

“But I am grown now, Olya!” cried Vasya immediately, swallowing her tears and sitting up. “Look, I am much bigger.”

“Not yet, I think, little sister,” said Olga gently. “But be patient and mind Dunya and eat plenty of porridge. When Father says you are grown, then will I send for you.”

“I will ask Father,” said Vasya confidently. “Perhaps he will say I am grown already.”

SASHA HAD RECOGNIZED THE monk the moment he strode into the yard. In the confusion of welcome and bride-gifts, with a feast in the making among the green summer birches, he ran forward, seized the monk’s hand, and kissed it. “Father, you came,” he said.

“As you see, my son,” said the monk, smiling.

“But it is so far.”

“Indeed not. When I was younger, I wandered the length and breadth of Rus’, and the Word was my path and my shield, my bread and my salt. Now I am old, and I stay in the Lavra. But the world is fair to me still, especially the north of the world in summertime. I am glad to see you.”

What he did not say—at least not then—was that the Grand Prince was ill, and that Vladimir Andreevich’s marriage was all the more urgent in consequence. Dmitrii was barely eleven, freckled and spoiled. His mother kept him in her sight and slept beside his bed. Small heirs of princes were wont to disappear when their fathers died untimely.

That spring, Aleksei had summoned the holy man Sergei Radonezhsky to his palace in the kremlin. Sergei and Aleksei had known each other a long time. “I am sending Vladimir Andreevich north to be married,” Aleksei had said. “As soon as may be. He must be wed before Ivan dies. Young Dmitrii will go with the bridal party. It will keep him out of harm’s way; his mother fears for the child’s life if he remains in Moscow.”

The hermit and the Metropolitan were drinking honey-wine, much watered. They sat together on a wooden seat in the kitchen garden. “Is Ivan Ivanovich so very ill, then?” said Sergei.

“He is gray and yellow together; he sweats and stinks, and his eyes are filmy,” said the Metropolitan. “God willing, he lives, but I will be ready if he does not. I cannot leave the city. Dmitrii is so young. I would ask you to go with the bridal party to watch over him and see Vladimir wed.”