The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)

Vasya blushed scarlet and took a great draught to hide her burning face. When she looked back at him, he was laughing.

“You need not make that prim face at me, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he said. “That bed was made for you by my servants.”

“And you—” Vasya began. She blushed harder. “You never…”

He had taken up his carving again. He flicked another chip off the wooden flower. “Often, when the world was young,” he said mildly. “They would leave me maidens in the snow.” Vasya shuddered. “Sometimes they died,” he said. “Sometimes they were stubborn, or brave, and—they did not.”

“What happened to them?” said Vasya.

“They went home with a king’s ransom,” said Morozko, drily. “Have you not heard the tales?”

Vasya, still blushing, opened her mouth and closed it again. Several dozen things she might say rushed through her brain.

“Why?” she managed. “Why did you save my life?”

“It amused me,” said Morozko, though he did not look up from his carving. The flower was crudely finished; he laid aside his knife, picked up a bit of glass—or ice—and began to smooth it.

Vasya’s hand stole up to her face where the frostbite had been. “Did it?”

He said nothing, but his eyes met hers beyond the fire. She swallowed.

“Why did you save my life and then try to kill me?”

“The brave live,” replied Morozko. “The cowards die in the snow. I did not know which you were.” He put down the flower and reached out a hand. His long fingers brushed the place where the wound had been, on her cheek and jaw. When his thumb found her mouth, the breath shivered in her throat. “Blood is one thing. The sight is another. But courage—that is rarest of all, Vasilisa Petrovna.”

The blood flung itself out to Vasya’s skin until she could feel every stirring in the air.

“You ask too many questions,” said Morozko abruptly, and his hand dropped.

Vasya stared at him, huge-eyed in the firelight. “It was cruel,” she said.

“You will walk a long road,” said Morozko. “If you have not the courage to meet it, better—far better—for you to die quiet in the snow. Perhaps I meant you a kindness.”

“Not quiet,” said Vasya. “And not kind. You hurt me.”

He shook his head. He had taken up the carving again. “That is because you fought,” he said. “It does not have to hurt.”

She turned away, leaning against Solovey. There was a long silence.

Then he said, very low, “Forgive me, Vasya. Do not be afraid.”

She met his eyes squarely. “I am not.”

ON THE FIFTH DAY, Vasya said to Solovey, “Tonight I am going to plait your mane.”

The stallion did not exactly freeze, but she felt all his muscles go rigid. It does not need plaiting, he said, tossing the mane in question. The heavy black curtain waved like a woman’s hair, and fell well past his neck. It was impractical and ridiculously beautiful.

“But you’ll like it,” Vasya coaxed. “Won’t you like not having it in your eyes?”

No, said Solovey, very definitely.

The girl tried again. “You will look the prince of all horses. Your neck is so fine, it should not be hidden.”

Solovey tossed his head at this question of looks. But he was a little vain; all stallions are. She felt him waver. She sighed and drooped on his back. “Please.”

Oh, very well, said the horse.

That night, as soon as the horse was clean and combed, Vasya appropriated a stool and began to plait his mane. With a qualm for the stallion’s outraged sensibilities, she abandoned plans for looping braids, curls, or fretworks. Instead she gathered his long mane into one great feathery plait along his crest, so that his neck seemed to arch more mightily than ever. She was delighted. Surreptitiously, she tried to take a few of the snowdrops that still stood, unwithered, on the table and braid them in. The stallion pinned his ears. What are you doing?

“Adding flowers,” said Vasya, guiltily.

Solovey stamped. No flowers.

Vasya, after a struggle with herself, laid them aside with a sigh.

Tying off the last trailing end, she paused and stepped back. The braid emphasized the proud arch of the dark neck and the graceful bones of his head. Encouraged, Vasya hauled her stool around to start on the tail.

The horse heaved a forlorn sigh. My tail, too?

“You will look the lord of horses when I’m finished,” Vasya promised.

Solovey peered about in a futile attempt to see what she was doing. If you say so. He seemed to be reconsidering the advantages of grooming. Vasya ignored him, humming to herself, and began to weave the shorter hairs over his tailbone.

Suddenly a cold breeze stirred the tapestries, and the fire leaped in the oven. Solovey pricked his ears. Vasya turned just as the door opened. Morozko passed the threshold, and the white mare nudged her way in after him. The warmth of the house struck steam from her coat. Solovey flicked his tail out of Vasya’s grip, nodded in a dignified manner, and ignored his mother. She pointed her ears at his braided mane.

“Good evening, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Morozko.

“Good evening,” said Vasya.

Morozko stripped off his blue outer robe. It slid off his fingertips and disappeared in a puff of powder. He took off his boots, which slid apart and left a damp patch on the floor. Barefoot, he went to the oven. The white mare followed. He picked up a twist of straw and began to rub her down. In the space of a blink, the twist of straw became a brush of boar’s hair. The mare stood with her ears flopping, loose-lipped with enjoyment.

Vasya went nearer, fascinated. “Did you change the straw? Was that magic?”

“As you see.” He went on with his grooming.

“Can you tell me how you do it?” She came up beside him and peered eagerly at the brush in his hand.

“You are too attached to things as they are,” said Morozko, combing the mare’s withers. He glanced down idly. “You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will.”

Vasya, puzzled, made no reply. Solovey snorted, not about to be left out. Vasya picked up her own straw and started on the horse’s neck. No matter how hard she stared at it, though, it remained straw.

“You can’t change it to a brush,” said Morozko, seeing her. “Because that would be to believe it is now straw. Just allow it, now, to be a brush.”

Disgruntled, Vasya glowered into Solovey’s flank. “I don’t understand.”

“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”

“I still do not understand.”

“That does not mean you cannot learn.”

“I think you are making a game of me.”

“As you like,” said Morozko. But he smiled when he said it.

That night, when the food had gone and the fire burned red, Vasya said, “You once promised me a tale.”

Morozko drank deep of his cup before replying. “Which tale, Vasilisa Petrovna? I know many.”

“You know which. The tale of your brother and your enemy.”

“I did promise you that tale,” said Morozko, reluctantly.