Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

“Your papa’s staying with the neighbors, kid. The ones around to the rear,” the Neanderthal said. “You might wanna join him.”

“Thanks, I’ll… I’ll do that.” He put down the armload of flowers. “These are the roses they wanted. That the Pearls requested, I mean.”

Casually, then, he walked away and around the corner of the house, as if he were going to the Babochkins. He stood in the shadows waiting until he heard the guard knock the ashes from his pipe, gather up the roses, and go indoors. Then he went to the oldest and largest of the oaks. Nimbly, he climbed up it and took his station deep within its leaves, where he could see into the second floor.

Arkady’s fingers bled from dethorning the roses, but his hands still smelled of their attar. He held them up to his nose and his heart soared nonetheless.

For a long, enchanted timeless time, Arkady spied on the Pearls. Much later, he would learn their individual names and personalities: laughing Aetheria, shy Nymphodora, mischievous twins Eulogia and Euphrosyne, solemn Olympias, and scornful Russalka. Their ringleader, Zoesophia, he had already seen. They wore…Well, who was Arkady to say that they wore too little clothing? Their mothers certainly would. But not he. If the clothes were flimsy and habitually revealed their ankles, their stomachs, and their long white arms, and occasionally hinted that further revelation was at hand…Well. That was all Arkady could say.

Their activities, it had to be admitted, were nothing like the fantasies he had conjured up in his mind. They played checkers and whist and charades. Nymphodora arranged the roses he had given the Neanderthal to deliver (and to Arkady’s dismay, pricked her finger on a lone thorn he had inexplicably missed), while the twins sang traditional Russian songs from sheet music they had found in a chest by his mother’s piano, and Olympias played accompaniment on the balalaika with such skill that when she put it down and remarked, “Not bad for the first time,” Arkady blinked in astonishment.

But which one was his love?

In an agony of delight and despair, he stared fixedly at each Pearl whenever she jumped to her feet and ran to fetch something, hoping to identify her by her walk.

And then, at last, a serene vision of beauty floated to the window, a single thornless rose tucked behind one ear. She lifted her chin up to the moon, extending the line of a neck that was as pure and beautiful as any line Pushkin had ever written, and as she did the light from a nearby candle sconce flashed on an eye as green as jungle fire.

Arkady caught his breath.

Then the corners of her eyes wrinkled up with amusement. And he knew: It was her, it was her, it was her!

“You may as well reveal yourself, young man. I can hear you breathing and smell your pheromones.” She looked straight at him.

Arkady stood. As in a dream, he wobblingly walked forward along the branch, one foot before the other, until he was so close to the girl he could almost but not quite have reached out and touched her with an outstretched arm. There he stopped.

“Whatever are you doing, perched up in a tree like a bird?”

“In a magical moment I’ll remember forever,” Arkady said, “I raised my eyes and there you were-a fleeting vision, the quintessence of all that’s beautiful and rare.”

“Oh,” she said quietly.

Emboldened, Arkady added, “My voice, to which love lends tenderness and yearning, disturbs night’s dreamy calm, as pale at my bedside burning, a taper wastes away. From my heart there surge swift words, streams of love, that hum and sing and merge and, full of you, rush on, with overflowing passion.” He stretched out that arm that still could not reach his beloved, and she took a hasty step backward. “I seem to see your eyes, glowing in the darkness, meet mine… I see your smile. You speak to me alone. My friend, my dearest friend… I love… I’m yours…your own.”

Giggles erupted, and, with a sudden jolt, Arkady realized that five more of the Pearls had crept up behind his beloved and stood listening silently while all his attention was on her and her alone. Now, seeing their amusement, he flushed with embarrassment, and they burst into outright laughter.

Zoesophia, who had been lost in a book, suddenly snapped it shut and strode forward, scattering all the Pearls but one before her. “You’ve had your fun, Arkady Ivanovich-for who else could you possibly be?-but now it is time my girls were abed. Aetheria, come away from the window.”

Aetheria turned back pleadingly. “Please, Zoesophia. The young man spoke so well. I would like to give him a small favor in return.”

“You may not so much as lift a finger to do so.”

Aetheria bowed in acquiescence. Then she curled one leg up behind herself and with delicate toes plucked the flower from her ear. Languidly, the rose descended behind her. Slowly her torso rose upright again. Then, with a snap of her knee, she flung the flower to the back of her hand. Without using her fingers, she lofted it out the window.

Startled, Arkady reflectively snatched it from the air.

When he looked up again, Zoesophia had slammed the shutters closed.

Arkady had climbed up the tree a man in love. He climbed down it in the throes of passion.

Above, he could hear Zoesophia clap her hands, gathering the Pearls about her. “Page fifty-five of your exercise books,” she said, and there were groans, followed by a rustling noise as the girls flipped through the pages.

Arkady felt a twinge of pity for the virgins, forced by their strict mistress to spend so much time on musical or sewing or physical exercises, whatever they might be. But that sentiment disappeared almost immediately as his thoughts fled from their drear and passionless lives and back to Aetheria. Aetheria! However stern and forbidding Zoesophia might be, Arkady would be forever grateful to her for providing him with the name of his love. Oh, Aetheria, I would die for you, Arkady thought. If you ordered it, I would plunge a knife into my heart right here and now. Just to prove how I feel about you.

Although he had to admit he rather hoped to prove his love in a different manner.

As he wandered away into the warm and welcoming darkness, Arkady heard Zoesophia’s voice slowly fading behind him.“This exercise is called the Position of the Camel and the Monkey. It is particularly tricky, for it involves…”

Almost randomly, he discovered himself at the front of the house. Only a dark smear of dottle on the front step remained to indicate that the Neanderthal guard had ever been there. An open window framed a tableau of dark figures crouched over the sickbed in the converted pantry. Arkady leaned against the sill, dizzy with emotion. He did not at first mean to eavesdrop. But the dull orange light drew his eye, and the night was quiet. So, perforce, he saw and heard everything.

“There!” Koschei straightened from the ambassador. “I have massaged enough of the blood back to his brain for the prince to regain consciousness. My drugs will give him the strength to speak. Most importantly, I have prayed constantly to God to forgive us for impiously prolonging the life of an infidel. See-even now he struggles to awaken. In another minute, you may speak with your master.”

“You are a miracle-worker,” Surplus said.

Koschei stood, hands clasped, as if in prayer. “All miracles come from God. Use this one wisely.” He stepped back against the wall, where he was half-hidden in shadow, and stood watching silently.

Prince Achmed opened his eyes. Only a robust and active man could have survived the long trek across Asia Minor, but now he looked nothing of the sort. His face was sunken and the skin about his eyes was as pale as milk.

Darger knelt by the ambassador’s side and clasped the man’s hands in his. Across the bed from him, Surplus also knelt. They both bent low to hear his words.