Кэтрин Арден - The Girl in the Tower

He hurried up with Marya into the darkness. “You promised!” Konstantin cried after him, arriving, stumbling, at the foot of the stairs and hesitating before the dark tunnel of the staircase. “You said—”

A ripple of wild laughter answered him, then silence. Konstantin stood gaping up into the dark.

Solovey and Vasya reached the other side of the yard. Konstantin spun to face them. Solovey reared, his hooves a breath from the priest’s head, and Konstantin toppled backward. Vasya leaned forward, her glance as cold as her voice. Behind them came the battering on the gate; above them, the ringing of swords. “What have you done? What does he want with my niece?”

“He promised me vengeance,” Konstantin whispered. He was shivering all over. “He said I had but to—”

“In the name of God!” cried Vasya. She slid down Solovey’s shoulder. “Vengeance for what ? I once saved your life. While you were still a man, unbroken, I saved your life. Have you forgotten? What does he want with her? ”

For a flicker, she saw the painter, the priest, somewhere beneath the layers of bitterness. “He said that if I were to have you, then he must have her,” Konstantin whispered. “He said I could—” His voice grew shriller. “I didn’t want to! But you left me! You left me alone, seeing devils. What was I to do? Come now. You are here now, and I ask only—”

“You have been tricked, again,” interrupted Vasya coldly. “Get out of my sight. You baptized my sister’s child; for her sake I will not kill you.”

“Vasya,” said Konstantin. He made to reach out; Solovey snapped yellow teeth and his hand dropped. “I did it for you. Because of you. I—I hate you. You—are beautiful.” He said this like a curse. “If you had only listened—”

“You have only been the tool of wickeder things,” she returned. “But I have had enough of it. Next time I see you, Konstantin Nikonovich, I am going to kill you.”

He drew himself up. Perhaps he meant to speak again. But she had no more time. She hissed a word to Solovey; the stallion reared, swift as a snake. Konstantin stumbled back, mouth open, dodging the stallion’s hooves, and then he fled. Vasya heard him weep as he ran.

But she did not watch him go. The dark stairs above seemed to breathe horrors, though the rest of the dooryard was alight from the burning stable. She gathered herself to hurry upward alone. “Solovey,” she said, looking behind her, a foot on the first step. “You must—”

But then she paused, for the sound of battle above and behind her had changed. Vasya turned to look again at the dooryard. The flames in the stable leaped higher than trees now, burning a strange, dull scarlet.

Dark things with slavering mouths began creeping out of the reddened shadows.

Vasya’s blood turned cold. Dmitrii’s men in the dooryard stumbled. Here and there a sword fell from a nerveless hand. A man above screamed.

“Solovey,” Vasya whispered. “What—?”

Then, with a final, rending crack, the gate gave. Chelubey came galloping into the red light calling orders, competent, fearless. He had archers to his left and right, and they filled the dooryard with arrows.

Dmitrii’s men, already wavering, broke. Now Vasya had an impression of loss and horror and chaos; horses fleeing blind, arrows flying over the wall-top, and all around pallid, grinning things that came stumbling out of the bloody dark, hands reaching, smiles pasted on faces sloppy with rot. Behind them came warriors, steadily advancing, with quick horses and bright swords.

Was this sorcery? Could Kasyan call fiends from Hell and make them answer? What was he doing with Marya up there in the tower? The flames from the stable seemed drenched in blood, and more and more creatures crept from the shadows, driving her people onto the blades of their attackers.

An arrow whistled past her head and thudded into the post beside her. Vasya jerked in startled reflex. One of the horrors stretched out a clawing hand toward her, grinning, its eyes blind. Solovey lashed out with his forefeet, and the thing fell back.

Chelubey’s deep voice called again. The rain of arrows grew fiercer. Dmitrii’s men could not rally against this new threat; they were fighting ghosts. In a moment the Russians would be cut down, one by one.

Then Sasha’s voice rang out, clearly, calmly. “People of God,” he said, “do not be afraid.”

SASHA HAD LEFT HIS SISTER at the postern-gate and gone running up the stairs into the melee of the palace, following the Grand Prince’s voice, the screams and the crashing. Below him, dogs barked and horses squealed. The palace’s front gate was taking a steady battering; Kasyan’s men and Chelubey’s Tatars howled to rouse the dead. The attackers’ chance for secrecy was gone; now their only hope lay in swiftness and in sowing chaos and fear. How many men had crept in through the postern-gate before Vasya gave the alarm?

The musty reek of old bearskin warned him, and then a sword came at Sasha’s head out of the near-dark of the staircase. He blocked it with a teeth-grinding jar and a shower of sparks. One of Kasyan’s men. Sasha did not try to engage him, only ducked the second stroke, dodged past the man, booted him down the stairs, and kept running.

A door stood ajar; he darted into the first anteroom. No one. Only attendants lying dead, guards with their throats slit.

Higher in the palace, Sasha thought he heard Dmitrii cry out. The light from the dooryard glowed suddenly bright in the slitted windows. Sasha ran on, praying incoherently.

Here was the receiving-room, silent and still, except that the door behind the throne stood ajar and from behind it came the crash of blades and a yellow flicker of firelight.

Sasha ran through. Dmitrii Ivanovich was there, unaided except for a single living guard. Four men with curving swords opposed them. Three attendants, who had been unarmed, and four more guards, whose weapons had not done enough, lay dead on the floor.

As Sasha watched, the Grand Prince’s last guard went down with a sword-hilt to the face. Dmitrii killed the attacker and backed up, teeth bared.

The eyes of the prince and the monk met for the briefest instant.

Then Sasha threw his sword. It went end over end and clean through the leather-armored back of one of the invaders. Dmitrii blocked the stroke of the second man, riposted with his sword in a flat arc that took his opponent’s head off.

Sasha ran forward, scooping up a dead man’s blade, and then it was hot, close battle, two against two, until eventually the interlopers fell, spitting blood.

A sudden, heaving silence.

The cousins looked at each other.

“Whose are they?” Dmitrii asked, with a look at the dead men.

“Kasyan’s,” said Sasha.

“I thought I recognized this one,” said Dmitrii, prodding one with the flat of his sword. There was blood on his nose and knuckles; his barrel chest heaved for air. Shouting came up from the guardrooms below; a greater shouting from the dooryard outside. Then a rending crash.

“Dmitrii Ivanovich,” said Sasha. “I beg you will forgive me.”

He wondered if the Grand Prince would kill him here in the shadows.

“Why did you lie to me?” asked Dmitrii.

“For my sister’s virtue,” said Sasha. “And then for her courage.”

Dmitrii held his serpent-headed sword, naked and bloody, in one broad hand. “Will you ever lie to me again?” he asked.

“No,” said Sasha. “I swear it.”

Dmitrii sighed, as though a bitter burden had fallen away. “Then I forgive you.”

Another crash from the dooryard, screams, and a sudden flaring of firelight. “What is happening?” Dmitrii asked.