The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

“As your experiments go, this one could have been worse,” said Alyosha, eying his slightly charred stockings. His eyes were red, his voice hoarse. He made a face as he pulled the warm, damp wool over his foot.

“Yes,” said Vasya, drawing on her own stockings. “I could have cooked the lot.” She eyed him again. “There will be something hot for dinner tonight. Don’t die before the rain stops, little brother.”

“No promises, little sister,” said Alyosha darkly, coughing. He straightened his hat and slipped outside.

With the rain and the damp, Father Konstantin took to making his brushes and grinding his stone in the winter kitchen. It was considerably warmer and somewhat drier than his room, though much noisier, with dogs and children and the feeblest of their goats underfoot. Vasya regretted the change. He never once spoke to her, though he commended Irina and instructed Anna Ivanovna often enough. But, even in the uproar, Vasya could feel his eyes on her. While she joked with Dunya, kneaded their poor thin bread, and plied her distaff, Vasya was always aware of the priest’s steady stare.

Better to tell me my fault to my face, Batyushka.

She hid in the stable whenever she could. Her forays into the crowded house meant rounds of unremitting work while Anna screeched and prayed by turns. And always, there was the priest’s silence and his grave regard.

Vasya never told anyone where she’d gone that bitter night in January. Afterward, she sometimes thought she had dreamed it: the voice on the wind and the white horse. With Konstantin watching, she was careful to address no remarks to the domovoi. But the priest watched her all the same. It was, she thought, almost despairing, simply a matter of time before she got herself into trouble and he pounced. But the days ran together, and the priest kept his silence.

April came, and Vasya found herself in the horse-pasture stitching up Mysh, Sasha’s old horse, now a broodmare who had borne seven foals. Though no longer young, the mare was still strong and sound, and her wise old eyes missed nothing. The most valuable horses—Mysh among them—spent the winter in the stable and went out to pasture with the others as soon as the grass showed through the snow. Certain disagreements always arose in consequence, and Mysh had a hoof-shaped gash on her flank. Vasya plied her needle more deftly in flesh than she did in cloth. The scarlet slash grew steadily smaller. The horse stood still, only shivering from time to time.

“Summer summer summer,” sang Vasya. The sun shone warm again, and the rain had stopped long enough to give the barley a chance. Measuring herself against the horse, Vasya found she had grown even taller over the winter. Well, she thought ruefully, we can’t all be small as Irina.

Tiny Irina was already hailed as a beauty. Vasya tried not to think of it.

Mysh broke into the girl’s reverie. We would like to offer you a gift, she said. She put down her head to nibble at the new grass.

Vasya’s hands faltered. “A gift?”

You brought us bread this winter. We are in your debt.

“Us? But the vazila—”

Is all of us together, replied the mare. Something more as well, but mostly he is us.

“Oh,” said Vasya, perplexed. “Well, I thank you.”

Best not be grateful for the grass until you’ve eaten it, the mare said with a snort. Our gift is this: we wish to teach you to ride.

This time Vasya really did freeze, except the blood came rushing into her heart. She could ride—on a fat gray pony she shared with Irina—but…“Truly?” she whispered.

Yes, said the mare, though it may prove a mixed blessing. Such a gift could drive you apart from your people.

“My people,” said Vasya, very low. They wept before the icons while the domovoi starved. I do not know them. They have changed and I have not. Aloud she said, “I am not afraid.”

Good, said the mare. We shall begin when the mud dries.

VASYA HALF-FORGOT THE MARE’S promise in the weeks that followed. Spring meant weeks of numbing labor, and at each day’s close, Vasya ate the poor bread from the previous year’s barley, with soft white cheese and tender new herbs, then flung herself onto the oven and slept like a child.

But suddenly it was May, and the mud disappeared under new grass. Dandelions shone like stars amid the deep green. The horses threw long shadows and the sickle moon stood alone in the sky, on the day that Vasya, sweating, scratched and exhausted, stopped in the horse-pasture on her way back from the barley-field.

Come here, said Mysh. Get on my back.

Vasya was almost too tired to reply; she gazed stupidly at the horse and said, “I’ve no saddle.”

Mysh snorted. Nor will you. You must learn to manage without. I will carry you, but I am not your servant.

Vasya met the mare’s eye. A flicker of humor showed in the brown depths. “Does your leg not pain you?” she asked, feebly, nodding at the half-healed gash on the mare’s flank.

No, Mysh replied. Mount.

Vasya thought of her hot supper, of her stool by the oven. Then she gritted her teeth, backed up, ran, and flung herself belly-down onto the mare’s back. A bit of squirming, and Vasya settled herself uncomfortably just behind the hard withers.

The mare’s ears eased back at the scrabbling. You will need practice.

Vasya could never remember where they went that day. They rode, of necessity, deep in the woods. But the riding was painful; that, Vasya always remembered. They jogged along until Vasya’s back and legs trembled. Be still, said the mare. It is as if there are three of you instead of one. Vasya tried, slipping this way and that. At last, exasperated, Mysh pulled up sharply. Vasya rolled over the mare’s shoulder and landed, blinking, on the loamy forest floor.

Get up, said the horse. Be more careful.

When they returned to the pasture, Vasya was filthy, bruised, and certain that walking was beyond her. She had also missed her supper and earned a scolding. But the next evening she did it again. And again. It was not always with Mysh; the horses took turns teaching her to ride. She could not go every day. In spring she worked incessantly—they all did—to put the crops in the earth.

But Vasya went often enough, and slowly her back and thighs and stomach began to hurt less. Finally the day came when they did not hurt at all. And in the meantime, she learned to keep her balance, to vault to a horse’s back, to spin and start and stop and leap until she could no longer tell where the horse ended and she began.

The sky seemed bigger that midsummer, clouds scudding across it like swans. The barley rippled green in the fields, though it was stunted and Pyotr shook his head over it. Vasya, her basket over her arm, disappeared into the forest every day. Dunya would sometimes look askance at the girl’s offerings—birchbark, mostly, or buckthorn for making dye, and rarely in sufficient quantities. However, Vasya was golden and shining with happiness, so Dunya just harrumphed and said nothing.

But all the while, the heat deepened until it was honey-thick: too hot. For all the people’s prayers, fires broke out in the tinder-dry forest, and the barley grew but slowly.

A white-hot day in August saw Vasya making her way to the lake, trying not to limp. Buran had taken Vasya riding. The gray stallion—white now—was still the biggest of the riding horses, and he had the wickedest sense of humor. Vasya had bruises to prove it.

The lake dazzled in the sunlight. As Vasya drew nearer, she thought she heard rustling in the trees that fringed the water. But when she looked up, she saw no flash of green skin. After a few moments’ fruitless search, Vasya gave up, stripped, and slid into the lake. The water was purest snowmelt, cold even at midsummer. It drove the air from her lungs, and Vasya bit back a yelp. She dove at once, the icy water startling life from her weary limbs. She cavorted about underwater, peering here and there. But there was no rusalka. Vaguely uneasy, Vasya paddled to the bank, pulled her clothes into the water, and pounded them clean on rocks. Finally she hung them, dripping, on a nearby limb and climbed the tree herself, stretching catlike along a branch to dry in the sun.