C. Cherryh - Chernevog

“Let’s get to the point,” Pyetr said.

“That is the point. Hwiuur’s being—pardon me—a snake. Very difficult to catch. Possibly it’s a little last rebellion: he’s like that. But it’s not the only uneasy feeling I have, and it doesn’t, as you say, answer the question what’s happened to the leshys, a very major question, in my position. So I do think it’s just as well we go north, and find ’Veshka, and explain to her you’re with me—because if we don’t, she’s very likely to fall Into the hands of some other crazy person, do you see, and none of us wants that.”

Pyetr said nothing. Sasha thought of flowers, thought of bread baking, thought of the garden at home and wondered if it needed weeding. He wished the weeds at least not to prosper.

Chernevog said, “Prudent, but let’s all admit she might try to free you, and I’ve no doubt there are things that will fly straight to her to help her. That’s why I want to find her first. That’s why I’m sure you do.”

Flowers, Sasha thought. Birches and a fieldmouse by the hearth.

Pyetr, don’t listen to him.

Chernevog said, “Your friend is speaking to you again. He’s trying to advise you be careful. So would I. I’d give him the same advice, of course, but he’s trying not to listen to me. — I’ll warrant his head’s not hurting now.”

The pain had gone. Sasha had no recollection when.

“See?” Chernevog said softly. “A safe camp, a safe rest. I can be very easy to get along with, if people are agreeable. — Put some wood on the fire, will you?”

The house seemed larger inside than out—the log walls were trimmed and polished and other rooms were curtained with fine needlework at which one had no wish to gaze overlong, the patterns so caught the eye. Fire blazed up in a hearth of river stone, an oak mantel held silver plates, and herbs hung in chains and bunches beside it.

This was Draga’s house.

And the mother Eveshka had not seen from her birth a hundred years ago was young and beautiful, her mother’s hair was long and pale, freshly brushed and tied up with ribbons, her nightgown embroidered with blue flowers very like those Eveshka had thought she had made up, to sew about her hems.

It was her nose, her mouth, her chin, except a little cleft. The resemblances both fascinated and terrified her.

Her mother said, “Do come in, Eveshka,” and, “Let me take your coat, dear, do sit down, god, your hair’s all over leaves…”

Eveshka set her pack down by the hearthside bench her mother offered her, and kept her coat on, and stayed standing.

But her mother slipped on a robe, drawing her braids over one shoulder, said, looking at her, “Would you like some water to wash?” —implying, Eveshka supposed, that her face must be dirty. Her hands certainly were. Her boots were muddy from the rain. She would never have let anyone so disreputable besmirch her own well-swept floors, she would scold Pyetr or Sasha or her father right out the door to shed the boots, but she suddenly found herself defending her dirt as her right to be out that door again tonight, very soon, and sooner, if she found reason.

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Well, do sit,” her mother said, beginning to fuss about the kitchen. “Do.”

“You needn’t go to any trouble,” Eveshka said. “Why did you call me here?”

“Because I wanted to see my daughter. Because you’re in danger.”

“From whom? From you?”

Draga drew tea from the samovar, set silver cups on a silver plate and slipped a honey-cake onto a small dish to set beside it.

Eveshka repeated, wanting a truthful answer: “From you, mother?”

Draga brought the tray to the fireside, set it on the end of the bench.”Your father told you terrible things about me. I know.”

“My father’s been dead for three years,” she said shortly. “Why now, mother? What do you want?”

“To protect you. And my grandchild.”

She wanted no wishes about the baby one way or the other until she was sure what she wanted, and she was surrounded by wishes, everyone’s damned interference in something happening inside her.

“Does everyone in the world know?” she asked sharply.

“You didn’t?”

She wanted to know things; she desperately barred her mother’s thoughts, that came at her this way and that, persistent as a snake after eggs.

She said, carefully, aloud, “No, I didn’t. It can’t be far along.”

“Mere days. Pyetr’s the father?”

“What do you know about him?”

“That he’s a common man. That he’s very kind to you, and very wise, and very handsome.”

That was not the response she had expected. Her father had never had a kind word for Pyetr, and that one of her parents finally agreed with her judgment tempted her to question all the things she had heard of Draga—but she must not be taken in that easily, dammit, no. Her mother had been spying on them, her mother had been sneaking about eavesdropping on their business.

“You’re afraid,” Draga said. “Here, don’t let the tea cool—sit down, sit. God, you’ve grown so beautiful.”

“I was murdered! I spent a hundred damned years as a ghost, mama, where in hell were you when I needed help?”

“Dear, I’ve had troubles, too.”

“You were sleeping with Kavi Chernevog. You sent him to our house, you sent him to rob papa, and to sleep with me, if he could—”

“That was Kavi’s idea.”

“He was a boy, mama, you were years and years older than he was!”

“A very charming, very dangerous boy. I wanted you, dear. I wanted you to come and live with me, and yes, I sent Kavi; your father would hardly have let me walk up to the door. Kavi wanted me to teach him certain things—I agreed if he’d go and get you away from your father, which of course took your cooperation. Yes, I thought he might try to win you for himself, you’re of an age; but Kavi had no intention of keeping his promises. He stayed to learn what he could from your father, he got caught where he had no business to be, and he still had a chance to have kept his promise to me. But he murdered you instead. Do you understand? He killed you because he’d told too many lies, and he knew how strong you were, and he knew you’d tell me too much. He knew if you ever got to me, the two of us would grow closer and closer, until he had no chance against us. So he killed you to keep you from me. And then he had to kill me before I found out what he’d done,”

“Did he?”

“He came very close to it. I was very weak, all but helpless. I knew what he was doing—I ‘d even have offered your rather my help, if I’d been able to, but I hadn’t the strength. Then—I found out later it was Kavi’s fall—something changed quite suddenly, and I could wish myself back, bit by bit.”

It was plausible. It was entirely plausible. Draga offered the tea, stood patiently with the tray in her hands, wanting her to take it, and for courtesy’s sake, and because her mother seemed disposed to stand there until she made up her mind, Eveshka took the cup from the tray, only to hold in her hands.

“No cake?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, well—” Her mother took the other cup, set the tray on the mantel and sat down, patting the bench. “Do sit. God, after all these years. What a lovely young woman you are!”

Eveshka stayed on her feet. “Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to see me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure you’d come, I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me—and because there’s more going on than you know.”

“Evidently everything’s going on that I don’t know! I’m having a baby and my dead mother’s hiding in the woods—”

“ Dear, dear, sit down. And drink the tea. It’s not poisoned.”