The demon stood there staring at her, his shoulders heaving, the flame burning low in the sockets of his skull and his teeth dull coals. He ground them together and spat, “Liar! Cheat! You have denied me my feasting! You have stolen my throne! But this will not be my end. I will find a new kingdom, I will find a new hearth, I will find a way to feed again!”
He shuddered his whole body over. The flame sank down low within him, and skin closed over his flesh again, the tsar’s face unrolling like a shroud over the horror beneath, even his beautiful clothes taking shape, of silk and velvet and lace. I covered my face so as not to look and huddled back against the couch as he turned away towards the door, until Irina let go of my shoulder. She said, sharply, “He is mine, too, Chernobog. You must leave him alone as well.”
I looked up in horror: she had put herself in his way. The demon stopped, glaring at her with red light still shining in the tsar’s jewel eyes. “No!” he spat. “No, I will not! He was given me by promise, by fair bargain made, and I need not give him to you!”
“But you already have,” Irina said, “when you made him marry me. A wife’s right comes before a mother’s,” and she pulled the silver ring from her hand, and reaching out caught the demon’s. He tried to jerk back, but she held him fast, and pushed the ring swiftly onto his finger down to the knuckle.
He stared down with red fury twisting his face, his mouth opening on another shriek, but it didn’t come out, and the demon’s whole body bent away like a curving bow. There was a glowing light deep in his belly, which began to move upwards: red light came shining before it like a candle coming from around a corner in the dark, growing brighter and brighter, and then the tsar suddenly convulsed forward and a single enormous glowing coal of fire came up out of his throat and was flung down onto the carpet before the fireplace. It burst up into a lump of curling orange flames, smoking and seething, that hissed and spat and crackled at us all with rage, a mouth of red opening to roar.
But even half crouching against the wall and her face still wide with alarm, the scullery-maid lurched at once instinctively for the iron bucket of sand and ashes and cinders beside the hearth. She poured it straight down onto the flames, smothering them, and clanged the bucket down on top of it all.
She left it there, stepping back hurriedly. Thin wisps of smoke leaked out from underneath it, a black smoldering ring darkening in the carpet around the base of the pail, but it did not go far. After a moment, even the smoke went out. She was staring at it, breathing hard, and then she looked over at me with her eyes wide, startled, and reached up to her cheek, where there was still the one small black smudge. But her hands were sooty, and once she touched her skin, you could not have told the one from the others.
I was trembling in all my body. I couldn’t look away from the pail, for terror, for a long time. Only after the last wisp of smoke was gone, then at last with a jerk I turned to look at my girl, my tsarina. The tsar was holding her hands against his chest, the ring on his finger gleaming pale silver like the tears running in silver lines down his cheeks; he was gazing down at her with eyes shining jewel-green, as though she were the most beautiful thing in the world.
Chapter 25
Sergey and I went back to Pavys three weeks later, once Papa Mandelstam was all the way better, and he and Stepon could look after the fruit trees while we were gone. All of them were growing very well anyway. Sergey had gone back out to the road and got the farmer who had the barn with the flowers to come and help him cut down some trees, for a share of the wood, and clear some land. We took that wood to Vysnia and sold it in the market there and bought the seedling trees: apples and plums and sour cherries. All of them were in flower.
While Papa Mandelstam was getting better, he wrote us many letters to take: one letter for everyone who still owed him a debt. “We have been lucky,” he said, “so now let us be generous. It was a hard winter for everyone.” I think he also thought that if we came with those letters, then everyone in town would be happy more than they would want to hang us. We took the tsar’s letter with us, too, but after all, the tsar was far away. We did not have to worry that they would come and get us, because nobody was spending time on hunting for us: all the work that everyone would have done in spring, they had to do now, in a big hurry, because it was already beginning to be summer.
But we were still surprised when we drove into town. Panova Lyudmila was standing in her yard sweeping it and she called to us, “Hello, travelers! Do you need a meal on the road?” and we looked at her and then she saw who we were and shrieked and threw up her hands and some men came running, and they all stopped and stared at us and one of them said, “You aren’t dead!” as if he thought we should have been.
“No,” I said, “we are not dead, and we have been pardoned by the tsar,” and I took out the letter and opened it and showed it to them.
There was a big noise for a while. I was glad Stepon was not with us. The priest came and the tax collector, who took the letter and read it out loud in a big voice, and everyone in town listened to it. The tax collector handed the letter back to me and bowed and said, “Well, we must all have a toast to your good fortune!” and they brought tables and chairs out of the inn and out of Panova Lyudmila’s house and jugs of krupnik and cider, and everyone had a drink to our health. Kajus did not come, and neither did his son.
I was very puzzled the whole time why they thought we were dead, but I did not want to ask. Instead I brought out the letters from Panov Mandelstam and gave them to all the people who were there, and the ones who were not, I gave to the priest, to give to them. Then everyone was really happy, and they even drank a toast to Panov Mandelstam’s health.
After that we went to the Mandelstams’ house and packed everything into the cart. Panova Gavelyte was the only one who was not happy to see us. I think she had planned to tell Panova Mandelstam that the goats and the chickens were hers now and Panova Mandelstam could not have them back. But she knew about the tsar’s letter like everyone by then so when me and Sergey came she only said, “Well, those are theirs,” and pointed to some thin sickly goats.
But I looked in her face and said, “You should be ashamed.” Then I went and took all of the right goats, ours and theirs, and we tied them to the end of the cart. I went and got all the chickens too, and packed them into a box. We took the furniture and the things off the shelves and packed it all carefully, and the ledger we put under the cart seat carefully covered with a blanket.
Then we were done and we could go back, but Sergey sat on the wagon seat silently and did not start driving, and I looked at him, and he said, “Do you think anyone buried him?”
I did not say anything. I did not want to think about Da. But Sergey was already thinking about him, and then I was thinking about him also. And I would keep thinking about him there, on the floor of the house, not buried. And Stepon might start thinking about it too. So Da would always be there on the floor, even once he was not anymore. “We’ll go,” I said finally.