The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

“Varvara tells me,” said Olga without preamble, “that you went riding at sunup and paraded my daughter through the streets. Is this true, Vasya?”

“Yes,” said Vasya, chilled at Olga’s tone. “We went riding. But I did not—”

“Mother of God, Vasya!” said Olga. What little color she had fled from her face. “Have you no thought for my daughter’s reputation? This is not Lesnaya Zemlya!”

“Her reputation?” asked Vasya. “Of course I care for her reputation. She spoke to no one. She was properly dressed; she covered her hair. I am her uncle, they say. Why can I not take her riding?”

“Because it is not—” Olga paused and dragged in air. “She must stay in the terem. Virgin girls mayn’t leave it. My daughter must learn to be still. As it is, you will have unsettled her for a month, and ruined her reputation forever, if we are unlucky.”

“Stay in these rooms, you mean? This tower?” Vasya’s eyes went involuntarily to the shuttered slit of a window, to the massed ranks of the icons. “Forever? But she is brave and clever. You can’t mean—”

“I do mean,” returned Olga, coldly. “Don’t interfere again, or I swear that I will tell Dmitrii Ivanovich who you are, and you will go to a convent. Enough. Go. Amuse yourself. The day is barely an hour old, and already I am tired of you.” She turned for the door.

Vasya, stricken, spoke before she could think. Olga stilled at the lash of her voice. “Do you have to stay here? Do you ever go anywhere, Olya?”

Olga’s shoulders stiffened. “I do well enough,” she said. “I am a princess.”

“But, Olya,” said Vasya, coming nearer. “Do you want to stay here?”

“Little girl,” said Olga, rounding on her with a flash of real rage, “do you think it matters—for any of us—what we want? Do you think I have any indulgence for any of this—for your mad starts, your reckless immodesty?”

Vasya stared, silenced and stiff.

“I am not our stepmother,” Olga continued. “I will not have it. You are not a child, Vasya. Just think, if you could only have listened for once, then Father would still be alive. Remember that, and be still!”

Vasya’s throat worked, but the words would not come. At last she said, eyes fixed on memory beyond the chapel walls, “I— They meant to send me away. Father wasn’t there. I was afraid. I didn’t mean for him—”

“That is enough!” snapped Olga. “Enough, Vasya. That is a child’s excuse, and you are a woman. What’s done is done. But you might mend your ways in future. Keep quiet, until the festival is over, for the love of God.”

Vasya’s lips felt cold. As a child she had daydreamed of her beautiful sister, living in a palace, like the fairy-tale Olga with her eagle-prince. But now those childish dreams dwindled to this: an aging woman, magnificent and solitary, whose tower door never opened, who would make her daughter a proper maiden but never count the cost.

Olga looked into Vasya’s eyes with a touch of weary understanding. “Come, now,” she said. “Living is both better and worse than fairy tales; you must learn it sometime, and so must my daughter. Do not look so, like a hawk with clipped wings. Marya will be all right. She is too young still for great scandal, fortunately, and hopefully she was not recognized. She will learn her place in time, and be happy.”

“Will she?” Vasya asked.

“Yes,” said Olga firmly. “She will. As will you. I love you, little sister. I will do my best for you, I swear it. You will have children in your turn, and servants to manage, and all this misfortune will be forgot.”

Vasya barely heard. The walls of the chapel were stifling her, as though Olga’s long, airless years had a shape and a flavor that she could breathe. She managed a nod. “Forgive me then, Olga,” she said, and walked past her sister, out the door, and down the steps into the roar of festival gathering below. If Olga tried to call her back, she did not hear.

18.

Horse-Tamer

Kasyan met her at the gate.

“I thought you came to drink wine with me,” Vasya said.

Kasyan snorted. “Well, you are here,” he returned easily. “And wine can be got. You look as though you could use it.” The dark glance found hers. “Well, Vasilii Petrovich? Did your sister break a bowl over your head, and bid you marry your niece at once, to redeem her lost virtue?”

Vasya was not entirely sure if Kasyan was joking. “No,” she said shortly. “But she was very angry. I—thank you for helping me return Marya to the house without the steward and the guard seeing.”

“You ought to get drunk,” Kasyan said, shrugging this off. “Thoroughly. It would do you good; you are angry and not sure who to be angry with.”

Vasya merely bared her teeth. She felt her snatched-at freedom keenly. “Lead the way, Kasyan Lutovich,” she said. All around, the city shrieked and bubbled, like a kettle on the boil.

Kasyan’s tight, secret mouth curved a little. They turned down the muddy street from Olga’s palace and were instantly lost in the joyous maw of a city at play. Music sounded from side-streets where girls danced with hoops. A procession was getting up; Vasya saw a straw woman on a stick being hoisted above a laughing crowd, and a bear with an embroidered collar being led like a dog. The bells rang out above them. The snow-slides were crowded now, and folk pushed each other for their turn, fell off the back of the slide or came tumbling headfirst down the front. Kasyan paused. “The ambassador,” he said delicately. “Chelubey.”

“What?” said Vasya.

“It seemed as if he knew you,” said Kasyan.

A clamor rang out in the streets ahead. “What is that?” Vasya asked instead of answering. A wave of people ahead of them were falling back. Next moment a runaway horse came galloping, wild-eyed, up the street.

It was the mare from the market, the filly Vasya had coveted. Her white stockings flashed in the dirty snow. People shouted and ducked out of the way; Vasya opened her arms to arrest the mare’s flight.

The mare tried to dodge around her, but Vasya adroitly seized the broken lead-rope and said, “Hold, lady. What is the matter?”

The mare shied at Kasyan and reared, panicked by the crowd. “Get back!” Vasya told them. The people drew away a trifle, and then came the sound of three sets of steady hoofbeats as Chelubey and his attendants came trotting up the street.

The Tatar gave Vasya a look of languid surprise. “So we meet yet again,” he said.

Vasya, now that Marya was home and safe, felt she had very little to lose. So she raised a brow and said, “Bought the mare and she ran away?”

Chelubey was composed. “A fine horse has spirit. What a good boy, to catch her for me.”

“Spirit is no excuse to terrify her,” retorted Vasya. “And don’t call me boy.” The mare was almost vibrating against her grip, jerking her head in renewed fright.

“Kasyan Lutovich,” Chelubey said, “take this child in hand. Or I will beat him for impudence and take his horse. He may keep the filly.”

“If I had the filly,” Vasya said recklessly, “I would be riding her before the noon bell. I would not have her fleeing panicked through the streets of Moscow.”