Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

“Your words are proud,” Darger said, “and yet your tone is bitter.”

“Yesterday I lost four warriors, and their kind cannot be replaced.” Gulagsky shook his head shaggily. “I have held this town together with my bare hands. Now I wonder if it is enough. When I first started my patrols, twenty, thirty, sometimes even fifty good, strong men came with me at a time. And now…” For a moment Gulagsky was silent. “All the best men have died, torn apart by strange beasts or felled by remnant war viruses.”

“Your son seemed eager to go out with you,” Surplus said. “Perhaps he could recruit among his friends.”

“My son!” Gulagsky snorted. The sullen young man himself did not look up from his platter. “He and his generation are as weak as water. They-”

Abruptly, Koschei broke out of his reverie and stood. “I am called to Moscow to set matters straight and put an end to its decadent ways,” he announced. “These heathen atheists and their vat-bred abominations are going to that cesspool of sin. Therefore they must take me with them.”

Everyone stared at the strannik in astonished silence for a beat. Then Darger dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin and said, “The person to decide that would be Prince Achmed.”

“Your ambassador will be dead within days.”

“Yes, perhaps… but still… No, it is quite impossible, I am afraid. Even without the invaluable presence of a prince, we are a delegation, sir. Not a commercial caravan to which travelers might attach themselves.”

The strannik’s eyes were two dark coals. “That is your final answer?”

“It is.”

He appealed to Gulagsky. “Will you not use your influence on your guests to alter their decision?”

Gulagsky spread his arms. “You see that their minds are set. What can I do?”

“Very well,” the strannik said. “In that case, I have no choice but to inform you that last night your son spent an hour up in a tree, first watching and then romancing one of the young women under your protection.”

“What?!” Gulagsky turned to his son with a terrible expression on his face.

“Further, later in the evening, he squeezed himself into the dumbwaiter in order to penetrate the girls’ sleeping quarters. Had he not been caught and ejected by one of the beast-men, who can say what else he might have done?”

Gulagsky’s face was contorted with rage. Arkady turned pale. “Father, listen to me! Your new associates…these horrible men…”

“Silence!”

“You have no idea what a monstrous thing they are about to do,” the young man said desperately. “I overheard them-”

“I said silence!” The room was suddenly full of argument and admonition. Only the pilgrim stood silent, hands clasped at his waist, watching all that transpired with a strangely benign expression. But Gulagsky’s voice rose above the clamor. “If you say but one more word-one!-I swear I will kill you with my own two hands.”

The room fell silent. Then Gulagsky said, with heavy emphasis, “You have committed an unspeakable breach of hospitality.”

Arkady opened his mouth to speak, but Darger, quick-thinking as ever, clapped a hand over it.

“Oh, you want to tell me your side of this story, do you? As if I didn’t already know,” Gulagsky said furiously. “Well, let me tell it to you instead: An inexperienced boy falls for a woman better than he will ever deserve. She’s young and foolish and a virgin to boot. All of nature is on his side. But who’s on hers? Not he! She is promised to another, greater and richer than he can ever hope to be. If he so much as touches her, I have been reliably told, she will burn. So if he wished the best for the young lady, he would keep his silence and leave her ignorant of his feelings for her. But he does not. So for all his passion, he doesn’t really care for her, does he? Only about his own sentiments. And what is he sentimental about? Why, himself, of course.”

The boy struggled to free himself from Darger’s grip. “Well, this shall not be. By God, I swear-”

“Sir, do not be hasty!” Surplus cried.

“If anybody so much as touches one of the Pearls while they are under my roof-even if it is only with the tip of one finger, I swear that with my own two hands I will-”

“Think!” Surplus urged him. “Think before you make any rash oaths, sir.”

But now, unexpectedly, Koschei placed himself directly before Gulagsky, who angrily tried to shove him aside. Unheeding, the strannik seized his arms in a grip of iron and without visible effort lifted him bodily off the floor. Ignoring Gulagsky’s astonishment, he said, “You were about to swear that you would kill your own son if he crosses your will. That is the same oath that Abraham swore-only you are not so holy a man as he. God does not so favor you.”

He restored the man to the floor. “Now control yourself, and do not add blasphemy and filicide to the myriad sins which doubtless already blacken your soul.”

Gulagsky took ten ragged breaths. Then, somewhat unevenly, he said. “You are right. You are right. To my shame, I was going to promise something rash. Yet it must be said: If anyone in this village so much as touches one of the Pearls, he will be exiled-”

“For at least a year,” Surplus said, before his host could add “forever.”

Gulagsky’s face twisted, as if he had just swallowed something foul. But he managed to say, “For at least a year.”

He sat back down at the table.

Surplus felt a tension in himself ease. It was not good to allow absolutes to enter into one’s life. They had a habit of turning on one.

At that very instant, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a Russian woman appeared in it. Gulagsky stood, chair toppling behind him, mouth open in astonishment. Then he recovered himself. “Lady Zoesophia. Forgive me. For a second, I thought you were…well, never mind.”

“In turn, you will, I hope, forgive me for borrowing these clothes, which I found in a trunk in the attic, and which I presume belonged to your late wife.” Zoesophia glanced down at her admittedly admirable figure. She wore a long and sturdy red skirt that brushed against the top of her oxblood boots, a russet-and-gold embroidered jacket over a white blouse, and kid gloves long enough that not a speck of wrist showed. An umber scarf was tied so artfully about her head that it took a second glance to realize that beneath it, a second, flesh-colored kerchief concealed her mouth and nose. “They fit me perfectly. She must have been a very beautiful lady.”

From an ordinary woman, such words would have sounded conceited. But not from a Pearl.

“Yes,” Gulagsky said, almost choking. “She was.”

“I thank you for their use. I must go out now, and I did not wish to draw undue attention to myself by wearing outlandish clothing.”

“Where, if I may ask, are you bound for, madam?” Darger politely queried.

“Monsieur de Plus Precieux and I are going to church.”

So saying, Zoesophia swept down the last few stairs, took the astonished Surplus’s arm, and led him away.

Though the town was small, there were enough people on the street- and they extremely curious about their exotic visitors-to discourage frank conversation. Children followed the couple, whooping. Adults openly gawked. So, although far more pertinent questions urged themselves upon him, Surplus merely said, “However did you manage to convince the Neanderthals to let you go out without a guard?”

“Oh! Whatever else they may be, the Neanderthals are still male-and it will be a sorry day when I cannot convince a man to let me have whatever I want from him. Also, with the prince indisposed, I am the embassy’s highest-ranking member.”