Кэтрин Арден - The Winter of the Witch

She knew that hand; knew this place. She thought she could even see feeling behind the ancient indifference in the death-god’s eyes. But he was looking at the bird, not at her, and she could not be sure. He was stranger and farther away than he had ever been, his whole attention fixed on the nightingale in the snow.

“Take us together,” she whispered.

He did not turn.

“Let me come with you,” she tried again. “Let me not lose my horse.” Far away, she could feel the blows on her body.

The nightingale hopped into the death-god’s hand. He closed his fingers delicately about the creature, picked it up. With his other hand, he scooped up a handful of snow. The snow melted to water in his hand; it dripped upon the bird, who at once went still and stiff.

Then, at last, he raised his eyes to hers. “Vasya,” he said, in a voice she knew. “Vasya, listen to me—”

But she could not reply.

For in the true world, the crowd drew back at a word from a man’s thunderous voice, and she was wrenched back to nighttime Moscow, bleeding in the trampled snow, but alive.

Perhaps she only imagined it. But when she opened her blood-smeared eyes, the death-god’s dark figure was still beside her, fainter than a noontime shadow, eyes urgent and quite helpless. He held the stiff body of a nightingale most tenderly in one hand.

Then he was gone. He might never have been there at all. She was lying across the body of her horse, sticky with his blood. Above her stood a man with golden hair, his eyes blue as midsummer. He wore the cassock of a priest and was looking at her with an expression of cold and steady triumph.

THROUGH ALL THE LONG ROADS and the griefs of his life, Konstantin Nikonovich had one gift that had never failed him. When he spoke, crowds grew pliant at the sound of his voice.

All that night, while the midnight snowstorm raged, he’d said extreme unction for the dying and comforted the wounded.

Then, in the black hour before dawn, he spoke to the people of Moscow.

“I cannot be silent,” he said.

At first his voice was low and gentle, addressing now this person, now that. As they began to pool about him, like water in the hollow of his hand, he raised his voice. “A great wrong has been done you.”

“Done us?” asked the soot-smeared, frightened people. “What wrong has been done us?”

“This fire was God’s punishment,” said Konstantin. “But the crime was not yours.”

“Crime?” they asked, uneasy, clutching their children.

“Why do you think the city burned?” Konstantin demanded. Real sorrow thickened his voice. Children, smothered with smoke, had died in their mothers’ arms. He could grieve for that. He was not so far gone. His words were hoarse with feeling. “The fire was God’s punishment for the harboring of a witch.”

“A witch?” they asked. “Have we harbored a witch?”

Konstantin’s voice rose. “Surely you remember? The one you thought was called Vasilii Petrovich? The boy—who was in truth a girl? Remember Aleksandr Peresvet, whom all men thought so holy, tempted into sin by his own sister? Remember how she deceived the Grand Prince? That very night the city caught fire .”

As he spoke, Konstantin felt their mood shift. Their rage and grief and fright were turning outward. He encouraged them in this, deliberately, deftly, like a blacksmith putting an edge on a sword-blade.

When they were ready, he had only to take up the weapon.

“Justice must be done,” said Konstantin. “But I know not how. Perhaps God will know.”

NOW SHE LAY IN her sister’s dooryard with the blood of her horse drying on her hands. Her own blood stained lip and cheek and her eyes were full of tears. She breathed in wrenching gasps. But she was alive. She crawled gracelessly to her feet.

“Batyushka,” she said. The word cracked her lip anew and set the blood seeping down. “Call them back.” Her breaths came quick and painful between words. “Pull them back. You have killed my horse. Not—my sister. Not the children.”

The crowd spilled around and past them, their bloodlust unslaked. They were beating at the door of the palace of Serpukhov. The door was holding, just. Konstantin hesitated.

Low she added, “Twice I saved your life.” She could barely stand.

Konstantin knew himself powerful, riding the crowd’s fury, like a rider on a half-tamed horse. Abruptly he put his hand to the reins. “Back!” he cried to his followers. “Get back! The witch is here. We have taken her. Justice must be done; God will not wait.”

She shut her eyes in relief. Or perhaps it was weakness. She did not fall at his feet; she did not thank him for his mercy. Venomously, he said, “ You will come with me and answer to God’s justice.”

She opened her eyes again, stared at him, but did not seem to see. Her lips moved in a single word. Not his name, not a plea for mercy, but, “Solovey…” Her body bent suddenly, with grief more than pain, bowed as though she’d been arrow-shot.

“The horse is dead,” he said, and saw her take the words like fists. “Perhaps now you will turn your mind to things proper for a woman. In the time that is left to you.”

She said nothing, her eyes lost.

“Your fate is decided,” Konstantin added, bending nearer, as though he could force the words through her mind. “The people have been wronged; they want justice.”

“What fate is that?” she whispered through bruised lips. Her face was the color of the snow.

“I advise you,” he whispered, gently, “to pray.”

She threw herself at him, like a creature wounded. He almost laughed with unlooked-for joy, when a blow from another man’s fist flung her down, crumpled at his feet.

“WHAT IS THAT NOISE?” DMITRII demanded. Few of his gate-guards had survived the night unwounded; the few that had all seemed to be shouting. Outside the walls of his palace came a tumult of voices and the sound of many feet in the snow. The only light in his dooryard was torchlight. The noise in the city rose steadily; there came a shattering crash. “Mother of God,” said Dmitrii. “Have we not had trouble enough already?” He turned his head to snap swift orders.

Next moment, the postern opened amid a flurry of shouting. A servant with yellow hair strode without diffidence up to the Grand Prince, trailing Dmitrii’s bewildered retainers in her wake.

“What is this?” Dmitrii demanded, staring.

“That is my sister’s body-servant,” said Sasha. “Varvara, what do—”

Varvara had a bruised cheek, and her expression chilled him to the marrow.

“Those people you hear,” Varvara snapped, “have broken the gates of the palace of Serpukhov. They killed the bay stallion that Vasilisa loved”—here Sasha began to feel the blood draining from his face—“and they have dragged off the girl herself.”

“Where?” said Sasha, his voice remote and terrible.

Beside him, Dmitrii was already calling for horses, for men-at-arms: “—Yes, even if they are wounded, get them on horses, it cannot wait.”

“Down,” said Varvara, panting. “Down toward the river. I fear they mean to kill her.”

VASYA WAS NEARLY SENSELESS with the mob’s fists, her clothes torn and bloodied. She was borne along, half-dragged, half-carried, and the world was full of noise: shouting, a cold, beautiful voice controlling the crowd, and the word, endlessly murmured— Father. Batyushka .

Down, they were going downhill; she stumbled in the hardened slush of the street. Hands—many hands—scoured her body; her cloak and letnik had been ripped away, leaving her in her long-sleeved shift, her kerchief gone, her hair falling about her face.