And then she stood transfixed, appalled.
For Vasya recognized the ambassador. She had last seen him in the dark, behind the vicious downstroke of a curving sword, while that same voice summoned his men with a war-cry.
He glittered now in silk velvet and sable, but she could not mistake the broad shoulders, the hard jaw and hard eye. He was speaking to the translator with a steady voice. But for an instant the Tatar ambassador—the bandit-captain—turned his eyes to hers, and his lip curled in an expression of half-laughing hatred.
VASYA LEFT THE AUDIENCE-HALL ANGRY, afraid, and doubting her own senses. No. It cannot be he. That man was a brigand. Not a highborn Tatar, not a servant of the Khan. You are mistaken. You saw him once by firelight, and again in the dark. You cannot be sure.
Was she? Could she really forget the face she had seen behind the stroke of a sword, the face of a man who had almost killed her?
That this man would mouth oily things about alliance and Dmitrii’s ingratitude while Russian blood still stained his hands…
No. It wasn’t he. How could it be? And yet…Could a man be a lord and a bandit? Was he an impostor?
Dmitrii’s party was going back the way it had come, crossing the kremlin at a quick pace. All about them dinned the careless noise of a city on the cusp of festival: laughter, shouting, a snatch of song. The people gave way when the Grand Prince passed, and shouted his name.
“I need to speak with you,” Vasya said to Sasha with quick decision. Her urgent hand closed about her brother’s wrist. “Now.”
The gates of Dmitrii’s palace materialized before them; the first torches were lighting. Kasyan shot them a curious glance; brother and sister walked with their heads close together.
“Very well,” said Sasha, after an instant’s hesitation. “Come, back to the palace of Serpukhov. There are too many ears here.”
Chewing her lip, Vasya waited while her brother made a swift excuse to a frowning Dmitrii. Then she followed her brother.
The day was drawing on; golden light made torches of Moscow’s towers, and shadows pooled in the space around the palaces’ feet. A bone-cracking breeze whistled between the buildings. Vasya could barely keep her feet in the tumult of the streets now: so many folk charged to and fro laughing or frowning or merely hunched against the chill. Lamps and hot irons smoothed the snow-slides; hot cakes sizzled in fat. Vasya turned her head once, smiling despite herself, at the splat and howl of flung snowballs, all beneath a sky turning fast to fire as the day waned.
By the time they came to Solovey’s paddock, in a quiet corner of Olga’s dooryard, Vasya was hungry again. Solovey’s white-starred head jerked up when he caught sight of her. Vasya clambered over the fence and went to him. She felt him over, combed his mane with her fingers, let him nuzzle her hands, all the while searching for words to make her brother understand.
Sasha leaned against the fence. “Solovey does well enough. Now what do you mean to say to me?”
The first stars had kindled in a sky gone royally violet, and the moon heaved a faint silver curve over the ragged line of palaces.
Vasya took a deep breath. “You said,” she began, “when we were chasing the bandits—you said it was strange that the bandits had good swords, finely forged, that they had strong horses. Odd, you said, that they had mead and beer and salt in their encampment.”
“I remember.”
“I know why,” said Vasya, speaking faster still. “The bandit captain—the one who stole Katya and Anyushka and Lenochka—he is the one they are calling Chelubey, the emissary from General Mamai. They are one and the same man. I am sure of it. The emissary is a bandit—”
She paused, a little breathless.
Sasha’s brows drew together. “Impossible, Vasya.”
“I am sure of it,” she said again. “When last I saw him, he was swinging a sword at my face. Do you doubt me?”
Slowly Sasha said, “It was dark. You were frightened. You cannot be sure.”
She leaned forward. Her voice came grinding out with her intensity of feeling. “Would I speak if I were not sure? I am sure.”
Her brother tugged his beard.
She burst out, “He is mouthing things about the Grand Prince’s ingratitude while he profits from Russian girls. That means—”
“What does it mean?” Sasha retorted with sudden and cutting sarcasm. “Great lords have others to do their dirty work; why should an emissary be riding about the countryside with a pack of bandits?”
“I know what I saw,” said Vasya. “Perhaps he is not a lord at all. Does anyone in Moscow know him?”
“Do I know you?” retorted Sasha. He dropped like a cat from the fence. Solovey threw his head up when the monk’s booted feet struck the snow. “Do you always tell the truth?”
“I—”
“Tell me,” said her brother. “Whence came this horse, this vaunted bay stallion that you ride? Was it Father’s?”
“Solovey? No—he—”
“Or tell me this,” said Sasha. “How did your stepmother die?”
She drew in a soft breath. “You have been talking to Father Konstantin. But that has nothing to do with this.”
“Doesn’t it? We are talking about truth, Vasya. Father Konstantin told me the whole tale of Father’s death. A death you caused, he says. Unfortunately, he is lying to me. But so are you. The priest will not say why he hates you. You have not said why he thinks you a witch. You have not said whence came your horse. And you have not said why you were mad enough to stray into a bear’s cave in winter, nor why Father was foolish enough to follow you. I would never have believed it of Father, and after a week’s riding, I do not believe it of you, Vasya. It is all a pack of lies. I will have the truth now.”
She said nothing, eyes wide in the newborn dark. Solovey stood tense beside her, and her restless hand wound and unwound in the stallion’s mane.
“Sister, the truth,” said Sasha again.
Vasya swallowed, licked her lips and thought, I was saved from my dead nurse by a frost-demon, who gave me my horse and kissed me in the firelight. Can I say that? To my brother the monk? “I cannot tell you all of it,” she whispered. “I barely understand all of it myself.”
“Then,” said Sasha flatly, “am I to believe Father Konstantin? Are you a witch, Vasya?”
“I—I do not know,” she said, with painful honesty. “I have told you what I can. And I have not lied, I have not. I am not lying now. It is only—”
“You were riding alone in Rus’ dressed as a boy, on the finest horse I have ever seen.”
Vasya swallowed, sought an answer, and found her mouth dust-dry.
“You had a saddlebag full of all you might need for travel, even a little silver—yes, I looked. You have a knife of folded steel. Where did you get it, Vasya?”
“Stop it!” she cried. “Do you think I wanted to leave? Do you think I wanted any of this? I had to, brother, I had to.”
“And so? What are you not telling me?”
She stood mute. She thought of chyerti and the dead walking, she thought of Morozko. The words would not come.
Sasha made a soft sound of disgust. “Enough,” he said. “I will keep your secret—and it costs me to do it, Vasya. I am still my father’s son, though I will never see him again. But I do not have to trust you, or indulge your fancies. The Tatar ambassador is no bandit. You will make no further promises of service to the Grand Prince, tell no more lies than you can help, stop speaking when you should keep silent, and perhaps you will finish this week undiscovered. That is all that should concern you.”
Sasha vaulted the paddock’s bars with lithe grace.
“Where are you going?” Vasya cried, stupidly.
“I am taking you back to Olga’s palace,” he said. “You have said, done, and seen enough for one night.”
Vasya hesitated, protests filling her throat. But one look at his taut back told her that he would not hear them. Her breathing ragged, Vasya touched Solovey’s neck in parting and followed.
17.
Marya the Pirate