“What news?” said Vasya.
The leshy made a grinding sound of displeasure. “Your people come with clamor to fright my woods and kill my creatures. They would have asked my leave once.”
“We ask your leave again,” said Vasya quickly. They had trouble enough without angering the wood-guard. She untied her embroidered kerchief and laid it in his hand. He turned it over in his long, twiggy fingers.
“Forgive us,” said Vasya. “And—do not forget me.”
“I would ask the same,” said the wood-guard, mollified. “We are fading, Vasilisa Petrovna. Even I, who watched these trees grow from saplings. Your people waver, and so the chyerti wither. If the Bear comes now you are unprotected. There will be a reckoning. Beware the dead.”
“What does it mean, ‘beware the dead’?”
The leshy bowed his hoary head. “Three signs, and the dead are fourth,” he said. Then he disappeared, and all she heard were the birds singing in the rustling wood.
“Enough of this,” Vasya muttered, not really expecting a reply. “Why can none of you speak plainly? What are you afraid of?”
Kyril Artamonovich emerged from between the trees.
Vasya stiffened her spine. “Are you lost, my lord?”
He snorted. “No more than you, Vasilisa Petrovna. I have never seen a girl walk so light in the woods. But you should not go unprotected.”
She said nothing.
“Walk with me,” he said.
There was no way to refuse. They walked side by side through the thick wet loam, while the leaves drifted down around them. “You will like my lands, Vasilisa Petrovna,” Kyril said. “The horses run across fields larger than the eye can tell, and merchants bring us jewels from Vladimir, the city of the Mother of God.”
A vision seized Vasya then, not of a lord’s fine house, but of herself on a galloping horse, in a land unbounded by forest. She stood a moment, frozen and far away. Kyril lifted and smoothed her long braid where it lay over her breast. Startled back to herself, she flicked it out of his grip. He caught her hair, smiling, in a fist, and drew her nearer. “Come, none of that.” She backed up, but he followed her, wrapping her braid round his hand. “I will teach you to want me.” His mouth sought hers.
A piercing shriek split the midafternoon silence.
Kyril let her go. There was a brown flash between the trees, and Vasya took off running, cursing her skirts. But even hampered, she was lighter than the big man behind her. She darted round a holly bush and skidded to a horrified halt. Seryozha was clinging to Mysh’s neck, and the brown mare bucked and spun like a yearling colt. A ring of white showed all around her frantic eye.
Vasya could not understand it; the boy had ridden the mare before, and Mysh was very sensible. But now she jumped as though three devils sat her back. Irina was pressed up against a tree at the edge of the clearing, both hands over her mouth. “I told him!” she wailed. “I told him he was being bad, but he said he was grown—that he could do as he liked. He wanted to race the horses. He wouldn’t listen.”
The alder clearing was full of shadows, too big for the noon light. One of them seemed to lurch forward. For a second, Vasya could have sworn she saw a madman’s grin, and a single, winking eye.
“Mysh, be still,” she said to the horse. The mare came plunging to a stop, ears pricked. There was a split second of stillness.
“Seryozha,” said Vasya. “Now—”
Kyril came crashing through the undergrowth. In the same instant, the shadows seemed to spring from three places at once. The mare’s nerve broke again; she wheeled and bolted. Her long legs dug into the forest track and she almost scraped her rider off in her wild career between tree-trunks. Seryozha screamed, but he was still in the saddle, clinging to the horse’s neck.
Somewhere, someone was laughing.
Vasya ran for the other horses, seizing her belt-knife. Kyril was behind her, but she was faster. She flashed past her astonished father and reached Ogon first. “What are you doing?” shouted Kyril. Vasya did not answer. The colt was tied, but a stroke split the rope, and a vault saw her settled onto his bare back, fingers wound into the red mane.
The horse bolted in pursuit. Kyril was left with his mouth hanging open. Vasya leaned forward, catching the stallion’s rhythm, feet locked around his barrel. She wished she’d had time to untangle her layers of skirt. They swept through the trees like a thunderstorm. Vasya bent low over the horse’s neck. A fallen log loomed in their way. Vasya took a deep breath. Ogon cleared the barrier, surefooted as a stag.
They burst out of the forest and into a muddy field scarce ten horse-lengths behind the runaway. Miraculously, Seryozha was still clinging to Mysh’s neck. He did not have much choice; a fall at speed would be fatal, the going made treacherous by hundreds of half-hidden stumps. Ogon gained steadily; he was much the faster horse, and the mare was racing in panicked zigzags, twisting in an effort to throw the child from her back. Vasya shouted at Mysh to stop, but the mare did not hear, or she did not heed. Vasya cried encouragement to Seryozha, but the wind snatched the words away. She and Ogon slowly closed the gap. Foam flew back from the horses’ lips. There was a ditch coming up at the far side of the field, dug to drain rainwater off the barley. Even if Mysh could jump it, Seryozha would never stay on her back. Vasya screamed at Ogon. A series of powerful leaps brought him level with the runaway. The ditch was coming up fast. Vasya reached out, one-armed, for her nephew.
“Let go, let go!” she shouted, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. Seryozha had time for one panic-stricken glance, then Vasya yanked him clear and slung him facedown over Ogon’s red withers. The boy had a handful of black mane clutched in each fist. Simultaneously, Vasya shifted her weight, urging the colt to turn before the looming edge. Somehow the stallion managed, gathering his hindquarters and lunging sideways on a course that took him parallel to the ditch. He came to a sliding, slithering halt a few paces later, trembling all over. Mysh was not so lucky; in her panic she blundered into the ditch and now lay thrashing at the bottom.
Vasya slid from Ogon’s back, staggering as her legs tried to buckle beneath her. She pulled her sobbing nephew down and looked him over quickly. His nose and lip were bloody from the stallion’s iron-hard shoulder. “Seryozha,” she said. “Sergei Nikolaevich. You’re all right. Hush.” Her nephew was sobbing and trembling and giggling all at once. Vasya slapped him across his bloody face. He shuddered and fell silent, and she hugged him tight. Behind them came the sound of a horse struggling.
“Ogon,” said Vasya. The stallion was behind her, flecked with foam. “Stay here.”
The horse twitched an assenting ear. Vasya let her nephew go and half-ran, half-slid to the bottom of the ditch. Mysh lay in a foot of water, but Vasya ignored it. She knelt beside the mare’s foam-streaked head. Miraculously, the horse’s legs weren’t broken. “You’re all right,” Vasya whispered. “You’re all right.” She matched the mare’s breathing once, and again. Suddenly Mysh lay quiet under her burning hand. Vasya stood up and drew away.
The mare collected herself, clumsy as a foal, and came spraddle-legged to her feet. Vasya, shaking now with reaction, wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck. “Fool,” she whispered. “What possessed you?”