C. Cherryh - Rusalka

“Bandits!” the old man said, indignant. “Thieves!” He had a scowl like a carved devil’s, and he had a stout staff in his hand which he showed every disposition and capability of using.

“No!” Sasha cried, holding Pyetr by the arm half for fear of Pyetr using that sword and half because he was all that was holding Pyetr on his feet. “Please, sir! We’re not thieves. My friend is hurt.”

The old man shifted his grip on his staff and glared at them—one eye seeming better than the other, those hands on the staff gnarled with age but strong enough, with two sharp butt-end blows, to do for a boy and do terrible damage to a man in Pyetr’s condition.

“Drop the sword!” the old man ordered, staff poised. “Drop it!”

“I think we’d better,” Sasha pleaded with Pyetr, whose weight was heavy on his shoulder. “Pyetr, it’s his house, we’ve nowhere to go, do what he says!”

“Drop it!” the old man said again, and angled the butt of the staff perilously toward two unprotected skulls, while Pyetr ebbed slowly, helplessly toward the floor, banging his head on the stones of the fireplace as he sank.

Quite, quite unconscious.

Sasha let him to the quilts and looked up at the old man, past the butt of a staff that trembled a scant arm’s length from his face. “Sir,” he said, trying not to let his teeth chatter, “my name is Alexander Vasilyevitch Misurov. This is Pyetr Illitch Kochevikov, from Vojvoda. We’re not thieves. Pyetr’s hurt. We were coming through the forest—”

“No one honest comes through the forest.”

“We ran away!”

“At his age.” The staff made a threatening jab. “Tell the truth.”

“He was in love with a lady and the lady told lies about him and her husband stabbed him; and I helped him get away.”

“And steal my food and my blankets and make free of my house!”

“Money,” Pyetr murmured, with a weak move of his hand. “I’ve money. Give it to him.”

“Money! What’s to buy here? Do you see anybody? I fish the river and I break my back in my garden and you offer me money!” He poked Sasha’s shoulder with the staff, poked it twice with an attitude that reminded Sasha most uncomfortably of a wife at the town market. “On the other hand—” The staff lowered, thumped against the floor, and Sasha glanced from that point of impact up to the old man’s face, thinking he had never seen a grin like that except on a carved wolf, or eyes like that except on painted devils.

“On the other hand—you don’t have the look of thieves.”

“No, sir. I promise you.”

“Do you know how to work, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” Sasha said on a breath. It sounded like a bargain, it sounded like food and shelter and of a sudden he had at least a small hope for them both.

Except he did not like the old man taking hold of his arm and pulling him up to his feet, or staring him in the eyes until he had the feeling he could not look away. The old man’s fingers were strong. His eyes were watery and dark and they let nothing go that they examined.

“Do you follow instructions, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pyetr tried to sit up, and the staff came down, clang! on the sword Pyetr reached for at their feet.

Sasha dropped to his knees between that stick and Pyetr’s skull; and stayed there, his heart pounding.

But of a sudden the fire hissed, stew boiling over apace.

“Get that!” the old man said. “Fool!” And Sasha jumped for it, wrapped his sleeve over his palm and pulled the pothook around to rescue the stew from the heat, as the old man collected Pyetr’s sword from under the heel of his staff, took it across the room and swept the scraps of the turnips from the table with the sword edge.

“I see. You eat my supper, you steal my stores—”

“I only added more turnips, sir, it seemed with two more of us—”

“I’ll have my supper,” the old man said, kicked the bench up to the table, set his staff and Pyetr’s sword against the wall, and thumped the table between them with his bony knuckles. “Boy!”

“He’s crazy,” Pyetr whispered, trying without success to push himself up against the stones. “Be careful.”

“Boy!”

Sasha grabbed a bowl from the untidy stack, grabbed up the ladle and filled it full from the pot, brought it and a spoon to the old man, and while he ate, poured him a little drink into a second bowl.

“Knew where that was, did you?” the old man snarled. “Thief!”

“I beg your pardon, sir.” Sasha made a nervous little bow, and stood with his hands behind him while the old man took a sip.

The old man’s wispy eyebrows lifted a little and came down again. “What did you do to this?”

“Salt, sir. Just salt. A little dill. It—” But it seemed presumptuous to say it had needed it. Sasha shut his mouth and bit his lips.

The eyebrows moved again, not in so profound a frown this time. The old man took another and a third spoonful and seemed quite pleased with it. He had a drink, a fourth spoonful, and finally he picked up the bowl and drank it dry, leaving pale drops on his wispy beard.

“Another,” he said, thrusting the bowl toward Sasha’s hands.

Sasha filled it again; and the old man took his spoon to it.

“Walked clear from Vojvoda,” the old man said without looking up.

“Yes, sir.”

“Him too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stabbed in Vojvoda.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stubborn fellow.”

“Yes, sir.”

The old man let his fist fall onto the table. “My name is Uulamets. Ilya Uulamets. This is my house. This is my land. Only my word counts here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I take it you want your friend taken care of.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Food, doctoring, that kind of thing.”

“Yes, sir—If you can, sir.” Sasha was at once hopeful and very uneasy. It was much too fortunate. “Do you know doctoring? I’m good with horses, I—”

The old man rapped on the table, and took another spoonful. “Doctoring, herbs, what you like, boy, trust me I know what I’m doing. But there’s a fee for my services. There’s a fee for what you eat and what your friend eats, supposing he survives. There’s a fee for my blankets and my fire and the nuisance he poses me. You I have use for. Shut up,” he said, the instant Sasha opened his mouth. “Do as you’re told and don’t be a bother to me or I’ll turn you both out in the cold and the drizzle, and how will your friend fare then , hmmm?—How do you think he’d fare?—Die, wouldn’t he?—Would you like that?”

“No, sir,” he said, and swallowed at a lump in his throat.

“Keep that crazy man away from me,” Pyetr called out from the fireside behind him. “Let me alone. I don’t need his help.”

“Please don’t listen to him,” Sasha said. “He’s fevered. He’s been fevered for days.”

“I don’t need his help!” Pyetr shouted, and made to get up.

“Excuse me,” Sasha said with a hurried bow and ran and laid hands on Pyetr only in time to keep him from hurting himself. “Please,” he whispered, “please, Pyetr, don’t—”

“That old man’s crazy,” Pyetr whispered furiously. “Keep him away from me, that’s all, I’m all right—”

“I’ll watch him,” he said, but Pyetr just leaned the shoulder of his bad side against the stonework and said,

“He’s not touching me.”

While the old man, Uulamets, slopped more vodka into his bowl and got up from his bench and rummaged on a nearby shelf, found a bottle and poured a blackish liquid into the same bowl—medicine, as Sasha supposed, watching the old man bring it toward them.

“I’m not drinking that,” Pyetr said.

“This is for the pain,” Uulamets said. “There will be pain.” He made then as if to pour it on the floor, and Sasha sprang up with a cry and righted the bowl, which Uulamets let him have.