Midnight’s smile took on a hard edge. “I was sent, as I said, and I am bound to obey.” A wicked gleam came into her eyes. “But, against my orders, I will give you some advice. Ride straight until dawn, always into the west—” She pointed. “There you will find succor.”
Vasya considered the wide smile. The chyert tossed back hair like clouds that cross the moon, and bore the regard easily.
“Can I trust you?” Vasya asked.
“Not really,” said Midnight. “But I do not see you getting better counsel.” She said that rather loudly, a hint of malice in her voice, as though she were expecting the forest to answer.
All was quiet except for the girls’ frightened breaths.
Vasya gathered her manners and bowed, a little perfunctorily. “Then I thank you.”
“Ride fast,” said Midnight. “Don’t look back.”
She and the black horse were gone, and the four girls were alone.
“What was that?” Katya whispered. “Why were you speaking to the night?”
“I don’t know,” said Vasya with grim honesty.
SO ON THEY RODE, west by the stars, as Midnight had bidden them, and Vasya prayed it was not all folly. Dunya’s tales had little good to say of the midnight-demon.
The night wore on, cruelly cold, despite the clouds rolling in. Vasya found herself shouting at the children, to keep them talking, moving, kicking, anything to keep them from freezing to death there on Solovey’s back.
She was sure the day would never come. I should have built a fire, she thought. I should have—
Dawn broke when she had almost given it up: a paling sky, snow-filled, but it brought, impossibly, the sound of hoofbeats. One young immortal horse, carrying four, it appeared, was not quite a match for skilled men who had ridden all night. Solovey leaped forward when he heard the hooves, ears against his head, but even he was beginning to tire. Vasya held the girls in a death-grip, and urged the horse on, but she almost despaired.
The tops of the black trees showed sharply against the dawn-lit sky, and suddenly Solovey said, I smell smoke.
Another burnt village, Vasya thought first. Or perhaps…A tidy gray spiral, almost invisible against the sky—that was not the black and reeking stuff of destruction. Sanctuary? Maybe. Katya lolled against her shoulder, beyond cold. Vasya knew that she must take the chance.
“That way,” she said to the horse.
Solovey lengthened his stride. Was that a bell-tower, over the trees? The little girls slumped in her grip. Vasya felt Katya behind her beginning to slip.
“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.