The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)

Vasya, overcome, a little dizzy, bowed to the crowd. She saw Chelubey’s face, irritated now, but still with that curve of unwilling amusement.

“I will take her now,” Vasya told him. “A horse must consent, after all, to be ridden.”

Chelubey said nothing for a moment. Then he surprised her by laughing. “I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery.”

All around, the people took up the laughter. The Tatar’s smile did not waver, though the half-suppressed laughter in his face vanished. “Come and fight me then, boy,” he returned, low. “I will have my recompense.”

“Not today,” said Kasyan firmly. He came up and stood at Vasya’s shoulder.

“Well, then,” said Chelubey with deceptive mildness. He waved to one of his men. A fine, embroidered halter appeared. “With my compliments,” he said. “She is yours. May your life be long.”

His eyes promised otherwise.

“I do not need a halter,” Vasya said, proudly and carelessly. She turned her back, and when she began to walk away, the mare still followed her, anxious nose at Vasya’s shoulder.

“You have a genius for trouble, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said, resignedly, falling in beside her. “You have made an enemy. But—you have a genius for horsemanship as well. That was a masterly display. What will you call her?”

“Zima,” said Vasya without thinking. Winter. It suited her delicacy, her white markings. She stroked the mare’s neck.

“Do you mean to set up as a horse-breeder, then?”

The mare breathed like a bellows in Vasya’s ear, and the girl turned, startled, to look at the filly’s white-blazed face. A horse-breeder? Well, she had this horse now, who would bear foals. She had a kaftan worked in gold thread: a gift from a prince. A pale knife, sheathed at her side: a gift from a frost-demon; and the sapphire necklace hung cold between her breasts: a gift from her father. Many gifts, and precious.

She had a name. Vasilii Petrovich, the crowd had roared. Vasilii the Brave. Vasya felt pride, as though the name were really her own.

Vasya felt she could have been anyone at that moment—anyone except who she really was—Vasilisa, Pyotr’s daughter, born in the far forest. Who am I? Vasya wondered, suddenly dizzy.

“Come,” said Kasyan. “It will be all over Moscow before nightfall. They are going to call you Vasilii Horse-Tamer now—you will have more epithets than your brother. Put the filly in the paddock with Solovey, and let him console her. Now you must assuredly get drunk.”

Vasya, with no better notions, followed him back up the way she had come, keeping a hand on the mare’s neck as they passed again through the riotous city.

SOLOVEY, CONFRONTED WITH AN actual mare, was more uncertain than pleased. The mare, eyeing the bay stallion, was in no better case. They watched each other with ears eased back. Solovey ventured a placating rumble, only to be met with a squeal and flying hooves. The two horses finally retreated to either end of the paddock and glared.

Unpromising. Vasya watched them, hand on fist, leaning against the paddock rail. Part of her had dreamed for a moment of having a foal of Solovey’s blood, a herd of horses all her own, an estate to manage how she would.

The other, sensible part was informing her, patiently, that this was quite impossible.

“Drink, Vasilii Petrovich,” Kasyan said, leaning on the rail beside her. He handed her a skin of thick, dark beer he’d bought on the way. She drank deep, and put it down with a gasp. “You never answered,” said Kasyan, taking the skin back. “Why does this man Chelubey seem to know you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Vasya said. “My brother didn’t believe me.”

Kasyan let out a little half-breath. “I suggest,” he said acidly, pulling at the beer in turn, “that you try me, Vasilii Petrovich.”

It was almost a dare. Vasya looked into his face, and told him.

“WHO KNOWS OF THIS?” Kasyan asked her sharply when she had done. “Who else have you told?”

“Besides my brother? No one,” returned Vasya bitterly. “Do you believe me?”

A small silence. Kasyan turned away from her, watched with unseeing eyes the smoke spirals of a hundred ovens, against the pure sky. “Yes,” said Kasyan. “Yes, I believe you.”

“What should I do?” asked Vasya. “What does it mean?”

“That they are a folk of robbers and the sons of robbers,” Kasyan replied. “What else could it mean?”

Vasya did not think that mere robbers could have built the ambassador’s exquisite palace, nor did she think a robber born would have Chelubey’s elegant manner. But she did not argue. “I wanted to tell the Grand Prince,” she said instead. “But my brother said I must not.”

Kasyan tapped his teeth with a forefinger, considering. “There must be proof first, beyond your word, before you go to Dmitrii Ivanovich. I will send out a man to search the burnt villages. We will find a priest, or some villager who has seen the bandits. We must have more witnesses than you.”

Vasya felt a rush of gratitude that he believed her, and that he knew what to do. Above them the bells rang. The two horses nosed for dry grass beneath the snow, determinedly ignoring each other.

“I will wait, then,” Vasya said, with renewed confidence. “But I will not wait too long. Soon I must try my luck with Dmitrii Ivanovich, witnesses or no.”

“Understood,” said Kasyan practically, clapping a hand to her shoulder. “Go and wash yourself, Vasilii Petrovich. We must go to church, and then there will be feasting.”

19.

Maslenitsa

The sun sank in a panoply of purple and scarlet beneath the flickering stars, and Vasya went to service in the evening, with her silent brother, with Dmitrii Ivanovich, with a whole throng of boyars and their wives. On great days, the women were allowed, veiled, into the dusky streets, to go and worship with their kin.

Olga did not go; she was too near her time, and Marya stayed in the terem with her mother. But the other highborn women of Moscow paced the rutted road to church, clumsy in their embroidered boots. Walking all together, with their servants and their children, they made a winter meadow of flowers, marvelously and comprehensively veiled. Vasya, half-smothered in the scrum of Dmitrii’s boyars, watched the brightly clad figures with a mix of curiosity and terror until a mocking elbow dug between her ribs. One of the boys in the Grand Prince’s train said, “Better not look too long, stranger, unless you want a wife or a broken head.”

Vasya, not knowing whether to laugh or be vexed, turned her gaze elsewhere.

The towers of the cathedral were a fistful of magic flames in the light of the setting sun. The double cathedral-doors, bronze-studded, stretched to twice the height of a man. When they passed from narthex to vast, echoing nave, Vasya stood still an instant, lips parted.

It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. The scale alone awed her, the smell of incense…the gold-clad iconostasis, the painted walls, the silver stars in their blue on the vault of the ceiling…the multitude of voices…