“Hold on,” she told them. They came to the edge of the trees. A bell-tower indeed, and a great bell tolling to shatter the winter morning. A walled monastery, with guards over the gate. Vasya hesitated, with the shadow of the forest falling on her back. But one of the children whimpered, like a kitten in the cold, and that decided her. She closed her legs about Solovey and the horse sprang forward.
“The gate! Let us in! They are coming!” she cried.
“Who are you, stranger?” returned a hooded head, poking over the monastery wall.
“Never mind that now!” Vasya shouted. “I went into their camp and brought these away”—she pointed at the girls—“and now they are behind me in a boiling fury. If you will not let me in, at least take these girls. Or are you not men of God?”
A second head, this one fair-haired, with no tonsure, poked up beside the first. “Let them in,” this man said, after a pause.
The gate-hinges wailed; Vasya gathered her courage and set her horse at the gap. She found herself in a wide-open space, with a chapel on her right, a scattering of outbuildings, and a great many people.
Solovey skidded to a halt. Vasya handed the girls down and then slid down the horse’s shoulder. “The children are freezing,” she said urgently. “They are frightened. They must be taken to the bathhouse at once—or the oven. They must be fed.”
“Never mind that,” said a new monk, striding forward. “Have you seen these bandits? Where—”
But then he stopped as though he’d walked into a wall. Next moment, Vasya felt the light coming to her face, and a jolt of pure joy. “Sasha!” she cried, but he interrupted.
“Mother of God, Vasya,” he said in tones of horror that brought her up short. “What are you doing here?”
10.
Family
Snow fell lightly, fracturing the winter morning. Dmitrii was shouting up at the sentry on the ladder behind the wall. “Do you see them? Anything?” The Grand Prince’s men hastily smothered their fires and began mustering arms. A crowd gathered around the newcomers: a few women hurried forward, crying questions. Their men followed, staring.
Sasha was only half-aware. The pale, smudged creature before him could not be his younger sister.
Absolutely not. His sister Vasilisa must by now be married to one of her father’s sober, earnest neighbors. She was a matron, with a babe in arms. She was certainly not riding the roads of Rus’ with bandits at her back. No. This was some boy who resembled her, and not Vasya at all. His young sister could never have grown tall and gaunt as a wolfhound, nor learned to carry herself with such disturbing grace. And how could her face bear such a stamp of grief and steady courage?
Sasha met the newcomer’s stare, and he knew—Mother of God, he knew that he was not mistaken. He could never—not in a thousand years—forget his sister’s eyes.
Horror replaced shock. Had she run away with a man? What in God’s name had happened at Lesnaya Zemlya, that she would come here?
Interested villagers crept nearer, wondering why the famous monk gaped at a ragged slip of a boy and called him Vasya.
“Vasya—” Sasha began again, forgetful of their surroundings.
Dmitrii’s bellow cut him off. The Grand Prince had come down from the wall in time to intercept Sergei, hurrying toward the commotion. “Back off, all of you, in the name of Christ. Here is your holy hegumen.”
The people made way. Dmitrii was still snarled from sleep, half-armored and loud, but he supported the old monk tenderly on one arm.
“Cousin, who is this?” the Grand Prince demanded, when he had parted the crowd. “The sentry sees nothing from the wall-top, are you sure—?” He broke off, looked more slowly from Sasha to Vasilisa and back again. “God have mercy,” said the Grand Prince. “Take off your beard, Brother Aleksandr, and this boy would be the image of you.”
Sasha, not usually at a loss for words, could not think what to say. Sergei was looking, frowning, from Sasha to his sister.
Vasya spoke up first. “These girls have been riding all night,” she said. “They are very cold. They must have baths at once, and soup.”
Dmitrii blinked; he had not noticed the three pallid scarecrows clinging to the intriguing boy’s cloak.
“Indeed they must,” said holy Sergei. He gave Sasha a lingering look, then said, “God be with you, my daughters. Come with me at once. This way.”
The girls clung to their rescuer tighter than ever, until Vasya said, “Here, Katya, you must be first. Lead them away; you cannot stay outdoors.”
The eldest girl nodded, slowly. The little girls were weeping with pure exhaustion, but at length they allowed themselves to be led away, to food and baths and beds.
Dmitrii folded his arms. “Well, cousin?” he said to Sasha. “Who is this?”
Some of the dispossessed villagers had gone about their business, but a few still listened unabashedly. Half a dozen idle monks had also drifted closer. “Well?” Dmitrii said again.
What can I say? Sasha wondered. Dmitrii Ivanovich, let me present my mad sister Vasilisa, who has come where no woman should be, is dressed like a man in defiance of all decency, has flouted her father and very likely run off with a lover. Here is the brave little frog, the sister that I loved.
Before he could speak, it was she, once more, who spoke first.
“I am called Vasilii Petrovich,” Vasya said clearly. “I am Sasha’s younger brother—or was, before he gave himself to God. I have not seen him in many years.” She shot Sasha a hard look, as though daring him to contradict. Her voice was low for a woman. A long dagger hung sheathed at her hip, and she wore her boy’s clothes without embarrassment. How long had she been wearing them?
Sasha shut his lips. Vasya as a boy solved the immediate problem of instant, appalling scandal, and the real danger for his sister among Dmitrii’s men. But it is wrong—indecent. And Olga will be furious.
“Forgive my silence,” Sasha said to Dmitrii Ivanovich, matching his sister glare for glare. “I was surprised to see my brother here.”
Vasya’s shoulders relaxed. As a child, Sasha had always known her to be clever. Now this woman said calmly, “No more than I, brother.” She turned brilliant, curious eyes upon Dmitrii. “Gosudar,” she said, “you call my brother ‘cousin.’ Are you then Dmitrii Ivanovich, the Grand Prince of Moscow?”
Dmitrii looked pleased, if a little puzzled. “I am,” he said. “How came your youngest brother to be here, Sasha?”
“By great good fortune,” said Sasha in no very pleasant tones, glaring at his sister. “Have you nothing better to do?” he added to the monks and villagers who stood about, staring.
The crowd began to break up, with many backward glances.
Dmitrii took no notice; he clapped Vasya on the back hard enough to make her stagger. “I don’t believe it!” he cried to Sasha. “And outside you said—you were pursued? But the men on the wall have seen no sign.”
Vasya replied, after only a slight hesitation, “I have not seen the bandits since last night. But at dawn, I heard hoofbeats and sought out shelter. Gosudar, yesterday I came to a town, burned—”
“We too have seen burned towns,” said Dmitrii. “Though of the marauders, not a trace. You said—those girls?”
“Yes.” To her brother’s mounting horror, Vasya continued, “I found a burnt village yesterday morning, and tracked the bandits back to their camp, because they had captured those three girls that you saw. I stole the children back.”
Dmitrii’s gray eyes lit. “How did you find the camp? How did you get out alive?”
“I saw the raiders’ fire between the trees.” Vasya was avoiding her brother’s eye. Sasha, to his chagrin, thought he could trace a likeness between his cousin and his sister. Charisma they both had: a thoughtless ferocity, not without charm. “I pulled their horses’ picket and scared their beasts into flight,” she continued. “When the men went into the forest after them, I killed the sentry and took the girls back. But we barely got away.”