Кэтрин Арден - The Girl in the Tower

“ He certainly cannot,” put in one of the guards, thickly.

The monks looked at each other.

Sasha and Rodion, old campaigners both, looked from the hegumen to each other, to the drunken ring of men. Vasya waited, head tilted, as though she could hear things they could not.

“We will escape,” said Sasha gently and low to Andrei. “I am a dangerous man. Bar the gates, Father. Set a watch.”

Andrei looked long and hard into the younger man’s face. “I never faulted your judgment, before today,” he murmured back. Lower still, he added. “God be with you, my sons.” A pause. Then, grudgingly, “And you, my daughter.”

Vasya smiled at him then. Andrei shut his mouth with a snap. His eyes met Sasha’s. “Take them,” he said aloud. “Put Brother Aleksandr—”

But Sasha already had his sword up; three strokes disarmed the drunken guards and they bulled through the rest. Rodion used the haft of his ax to clear a path, and Vasya stayed sensibly between them. Then they were clear of the ring of people and running down the cloister to the postern-gate that would take them out into Moscow.

THE PAIN FROM VASYA’S blow had blinded Konstantin; for a moment he stood doubled over in the reeking bathhouse, with red lights flashing before his eyes. He heard the door open and slam. Then silence, save for the sounds of weeping in the inner room.

Feeling sick, he opened his eyes.

Vasya was gone. A wispy creature sat studying him with grave curiosity.

Konstantin jerked upright so fast his vision darkened once more.

“You have been touched by the one-eyed god,” the bannik informed the priest. “The eater. So you see us. I haven’t met one of your sort in a long time.” The bannik sat back on his fat, naked, foggy haunch. “Would you like to hear a prophecy?”

Icy sweat broke out over all Konstantin’s body. He stumbled upright. “Back, devil. Get away from me!”

The bannik did not stir. “You will be great among men,” he informed the priest, maliciously. “And you will get only horror of it.”

Konstantin’s sweaty hand lay heavy on the latch. “Great among men?”

The bannik snorted and hurled a ladleful of scalding water. “Get out, poor hungry creature. Get out and leave the dead in peace.” He hurled more water.

Konstantin screamed and half-fell, dripping and burned, out of the bathhouse. Vasya—where was Vasya? She could lift this curse. She could tell him—

But Vasya was gone. He stumbled around the dooryard awhile, searching, but there was no sign of her. Not even footprints. Of course she was gone. Was she not a witch, in league with demons?

Kasyan Lutovich had promised him vengeance, if only he would perform one little task. “Hate the little witches?” Kasyan had said. “Well, your Vasya is not the only witch in Moscow. Do this thing for me. Afterward, I will help you—”

Promises, empty promises. What matter what Kasyan Lutovich said? Men of God did not take vengeance. But…

This is not vengeance, Konstantin thought. Battle against evil, as was good in the sight of God. Besides, if all that Kasyan said was true—then Konstantin might indeed become a bishop. Only first—

Konstantin Nikonovich, with bitterness in his soul, went off toward the tower of the terem. It was almost empty, its fires guttering. Olga’s women were all with the princess, in the bathhouse at his back.

But not quite empty. A black-eyed girl-child slept in the terem, with ghosts in her innocent eyes. Her guard on that tumultuous night was a fond old nurse who would never question his authority as a priest.

SASHA AND RODION AND VASYA paused an instant to breathe in the shadow of the monastery wall. The monastery behind them muttered like a spring-flood; it was only a matter of time before Dmitrii’s guards burst forth in angry pursuit. “Hurry,” Vasya said.

The revel was dying away now, as the drunks staggered home. The next day was the Day of Forgiveness. The three ran up the hill unremarked, keeping to the shadows. Sasha carried his stolen sword, and Rodion had an ax.

The Grand Prince’s palace stood blocky and impregnable at the crown of the hill. Torches lit the wooden gate, and two shivering guards flanked it, ice in their beards. It certainly did not look like a palace in imminent danger.

“Now what?” whispered Rodion, while they skulked in the shadow of the wall opposite.

“We must get in,” said Vasya impatiently. “The Grand Prince must be woken and warned.”

“How can you be—” Rodion began.

“There are two smaller gates,” cut in Sasha, “besides the main one. But they will be barred from the inside.”

“We must go over the wall,” said Vasya shortly.

Sasha looked at his sister. He had never thought of her as girlish, but the last trace of softness was gone. The quick brain, the strong limbs were there: fiercely, almost defiantly present, though concealed beneath her encumbering dress. She was more feminine than she had ever been, and less.

Witch. The word drifted across his mind. We call such women so, because we have no other name.

She seemed to catch his thought; she bent her head in troubled acknowledgment. Then she said, “I am smaller than either of you. If you help me, I can get over the wall. I will open a gate for you.” Her eye traveled once more over the snowy, silent street. “Watch for enemies in the meantime.”

“Why are you giving orders?” Rodion managed. “How do you know all this?”

“How,” interrupted Sasha with impatience of his own, “do you mean to open a gate for us?”

Both men distrusted Vasya’s answering smile; wide and careless. “Watch,” she said.

Sasha and Rodion glanced at each other. They had seen men on battlefields wear that face, and it rarely ended well.

Vasya ran like a wraith for the Grand Prince of Moscow’s walls. Sasha followed her. In her face was a fitful light that he did not like. “Lift me up,” she said.

“Vasya—”

“There is no time, brother.”

“Mother of God,” Sasha muttered, and bent to take her weight. She was bird-light when she stepped to his back, and then, as he straightened, to his shoulders. She was still short of the wall, but then she jumped unexpectedly, sending him sprawling backward, and caught the wall-top with the first two joints of her strong fingers. She had no mittens. She pulled herself up by main force. One booted foot rose to touch the wall-top. An instant Vasya crouched there, almost invisible. Then she dropped into the deep snow on the other side.

Sasha got to his feet, brushing off snow. Rodion came up behind him, shaking his head. “When I met her at Lesnaya Zemlya I was lost in the rain,” he said. “She was gathering mushrooms, wet as a water-spirit, and riding a horse with no bridle. I knew she was not a girl formed for convents but—”

“She is herself,” said Sasha. “Doom and blessing both, and it is for God to judge her. But in this, I will trust her. We must watch for enemies, and wait.”

VASYA DROPPED FROM THE WALL into a snowbank and rose to her feet unhurt. Now she got some good out of her silly footrace around Dmitrii Ivanovich’s palace—it seemed so long ago—for she was reasonably sure of her ground. There—stables. There—brewery. Smokehouse, tannery, blacksmith. The palace itself.

Above all, Vasya wanted her horse. She wanted his strength, his warm breath, his uncomplicated affection. Without him, she was a lost girl in a dress; on his back, she felt invincible.

But first there was another boon from that footrace, and she must use it.

With freezing fingers, Vasya reopened the cut on her wrist, that had given the ghost suck earlier. She let three drops fall into the snow.