The horse’s ears eased back in answer.
As the horses went further out onto that great stretch of river-ice, the shouting, the wagering slowly went silent. In the stillness, the only movement was of smoke, spiraling against the pure sky.
No more time for talk. The start had been scratched in the pebbled snow, and a blue-lipped bishop, cap and cross black against the innocent sky, waited to bless the racers.
The blessing said, Kasyan bared his teeth at Vasya and spun his mare away. Vasya nudged Solovey, who turned in the opposite direction. The two horses made circles and came up walking side by side to the start. She could feel a ferocity gathering in the stallion beneath her, a hunger for speed, and she felt a loosening, an answering savagery in her own breast.
“Solovey,” she whispered, with love, and she knew the horse understood. She had a final impression of white sun and white snow and a sky the precise color of Morozko’s eyes. Then the two horses broke at the same instant. Any words Vasya might have said were whipped away and lost with the wind of their speed and the throat-shattering shriek of the crowd.
THE FIRST PART OF THE RACE took them straight down the river, where they would turn sharply to cut across the thick snow at the city’s foot. Solovey bounded along like a hare, and Vasya whooped as they raced for the first time past the crowd: a howl that defied them, defied her rival, defied the world.
The people’s answering cries floated over the snow and then it was as though the two horses were alone, running along the flat stride for stride.
The mare ran like a star falling, and Vasya realized, with disbelief, that on the open ground, she was faster than Solovey. The mare pulled ahead by a stride, and then another. The foam flew from her lips as her rider lashed her with the heavy rein. Could she keep it up, twice around the city? Vasya sat quiet and forward on Solovey’s back and the horse ran fast but easily. They were coming to the turn; Vasya could see the ice blue and slick. She sat up. Solovey gathered himself and turned up the bank without skidding.
The golden mare was going so fast that she nearly missed it; Kasyan hauled her around and she stumbled, but recovered, long ears flat to her head, while her rider shouted her on. Vasya whispered to Solovey and he took a short stride, gathered his quarters beneath him, and sprang smoothly to the right, gaining ground. His head hung level with the mare’s hip. The mare was half-frantic and floundering with her rider’s steady whipping. Solovey ran in great leaps, and soon they were drawing ahead; now Kasyan’s stirrup was level with Solovey’s heel.
Kasyan whooped and saluted her, teeth bared, when they passed him, and Vasya, despite her fear, felt answering laughter rise in her own throat. Fear and thought were all gone; there was only the speed, the wind and cold, the perfect heave and surge of her horse beneath her. She leaned forward, whispering encouragement to Solovey. The horse’s ears tilted toward her, and then he found a speed greater still. They were nearly a horse-length in front, and Vasya had frozen tears running down her face. The wind dried her lips and cracked them. Her teeth ached with cold. To the right again, and then they were in the thick snow, running beneath the kremlin-wall. Shouts rained on them from the wall-top. Down and down, faster and faster, and with her legs and her weight and her soft voice, Vasya bade the horse keep his feet under himself, his head forward and driving. Go, she told him. Go!
They hit the ice again with the speed of a storm, ahead of their rivals, and now there was the sound of the boyars cheering. They had made the first circle.
Some of the younger men were galloping their horses along the ice, racing the speeding Solovey, but even their fresh horses could not keep up and they fell back and away. Vasya shouted laughing abuse at them, and they answered in kind; then she risked a look behind.
The golden mare had opened up when she came back onto the river, running over the ice faster than Vasya had ever seen a horse run, chased by the howls of the watchers. She was gaining on Solovey again, foam speckling her breast. Vasya leaned forward and whispered to her horse. The stallion found something in him: a breath, a swifter stride still, and when the mare caught him, he matched her. This time they hit the turn side by side, and Kasyan had learned his lesson; he checked the mare a stride before, so that she would not slide on the ice.
No possibility of speech, of thought. Like horses yoked to a wagon, the mare and the stallion circled the city side by side, galloping at full stretch but neither one gaining, until they were racing again down the twisting road of the posad, down again toward the riverbank and the end of the race.
But—there—a sledge—a heedless sledge halted too soon, fouling their path. People all around it, shouting, heaving. The riders had circled the city faster than these fools had thought possible, and so the way was blocked.
Kasyan glanced at her with joyful invitation, and Vasya couldn’t help it, she grinned back at him. Down they tore to the sledge heaped high, and Vasya was counting Solovey’s strides now, a hand on his neck. Three, two, and there was not room for another. The horse heaved himself up and over, tucking his hooves. He came down lightly on the slick snow and launched himself down the final stretch of river, toward the end of the race.
The mare leaped the sledge a stride behind; she hit the ice like a bird, then they were racing along the flat with all Moscow screaming. For the first time, Vasya cried aloud to Solovey: shouted, and she felt him answer, but the mare equaled him, tearing along, wild-eyed, and the two horses ran down the ice together, their riders’ knees jostling.
Vasya did not see the hand until it was too late.
One minute Kasyan was riding, fingers urgent on the reins. The next he had reached over and seized the ties that bound her hood, seized them and wrenched them apart, so that the sheepskin cap tumbled away. Her hair tumbled out, her plait raveled, and then the black banner of her hair was flying loose for all to see.
Solovey could not have stopped even if he had wished to. He drove on heedless of everything. Vasya, her battle-madness gone cold and dead, could only cling to him, panting.
The stallion thrust his head in front, then his shoulder, and then they stormed past the finish to a stunned silence. Vasya knew that, win or lose the race, Kasyan had beaten her at a game she had not known she was playing.
SHE SAT UP. SOLOVEY SLOWED. The stallion was heaving for breath, spent. Even if she had wanted to escape, the horse could not manage it now.
Vasya dropped to the ground, getting her weight off him, and turned back to face the crowd of boyars, of bishops, and the Grand Prince himself, who stood looking at her in horrified silence.
Her hair wrapped her body, snagged on the fur of her cloak. Kasyan had already slid off his golden mare. The horse stood still, her head low, blood and foam dripping from the tender corners of her mouth, where the bit had cut deep.
Vasya, in the midst of horror, knew a sudden fury at that golden bridle. Jerkily, she set a hand on the headstall, meaning to rip it off.
But Kasyan’s gloved hand shot out, knocked her fingers away, and hauled her back.
Solovey squealed and reared, striking out, but men with ropes—Kasyan’s men—beat the exhausted horse away. Vasya was thrust onto her knees in the snow in front of the Grand Prince, her hair hanging all about her face and all Moscow watching.
Dmitrii was salt-white above his pale beard. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What is this?” All about him his boyars were staring.