“Vasilii Petrovich,” said Dmitrii, when she had crossed the clearing and bowed to the two men. Solovey followed her anxiously. “My cousin—my father’s sister-son. This is Kasyan Lutovich. Between you, you have won my victory.”
“But we have met,” said Kasyan to Vasya. “You did not tell me you were the Grand Prince’s cousin.” At Dmitrii’s startled glance, he added, “I met this boy by chance in a town market a sennight ago. I knew he looked familiar—he is the image of his brother. I wish you had told me who you were, Vasilii Petrovich. I could have brought you with honor to the Lavra.”
Kasyan’s dark scrutiny had not softened since that day in Chudovo, but Vasya, cocooned in the tranquillity of extreme weariness and shock, returned equably, “I had run away from home, and did not want word getting back too soon. I did not know you, Gospodin. Besides”—she found herself grinning impishly, almost drunkenly, and wondered at the feeling rising in her throat: laughter or sob, she could not have said—“I came in good time. Did I not, Dmitrii Ivanovich?”
Dmitrii laughed. “You did indeed. A wise boy. A wise boy, indeed; for only fools trust, when they are alone on the road. Come, I wish you to be friends.”
“As do I,” said Kasyan, his eyes on hers.
Vasya nodded, wishing he would not stare, and wondering why he did. A girl might well pray to the Blessed Virgin to have hair of that deep russet color. She looked hastily away.
“Sasha, are you fit?” called Dmitrii.
Sasha was looking Tuman over for scratches. “Yes,” he returned shortly. “Although I will have to hold my sword in my shield-hand.”
“Well enough,” said Dmitrii. His own gelding had a great gash in his flank; the Grand Prince mounted one of his men’s horses. “We have another hunt before us now, Kasyan Lutovich. The stragglers must be tracked to their lair.” Dmitrii bent from the saddle to give instructions to those who would bring the wounded men back to the Lavra.
Kasyan mounted up and paused, looking Vasya over. “Have a care for this boy, Brother Aleksandr,” he said lightly. “He is the color of the snow.”
Sasha frowned at Vasya’s face. “You should go back with the wounded.”
“But I am not wounded,” Vasya pointed out, with a floating, detached logic that did not appear to reassure her brother. “I want to see this done.”
“Of course you do,” put in Dmitrii. “Come, Brother Aleksandr, do not shame the boy. Drink this, Vasya, and let us go now; I want my supper.”
He handed her his skin of mead, and Vasya gulped it down, welcoming the warmth that washed away feeling. The wind had dropped now and the dead men lay huddled alone in the snow. She looked at them, and looked away.
Solovey had taken no hurt in the melee, but his head was high, his eye wild with the smell of blood.
“Come,” Vasya said, stroking the stallion’s neck. “We are not finished.”
I do not like this, said Solovey, stamping. Let us run into the woods.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
DMITRII AND KASYAN RODE FIRST: now one ahead, now the other, now talking in low tones, now silent, in the manner of men exploring a fragile trust. Sasha rode at Solovey’s flank and did not speak at all. He held his torn arm stiffly.
The snow had been trampled in the survivors’ flight, all dappled and spotted with blood. Solovey had quieted but he was nothing like calm; he would not walk, but went sideways instead, almost cantering in place, with swiveling ears.
Their pace was not the swiftest, to spare the weary horses, and the day dragged on. They trotted from clearing to shadow and back again, and they all grew colder and colder.
At last Dmitrii’s warriors rode down a single wounded bandit. “Where are the others?” the Grand Prince demanded, while Kasyan held the man jerking in the snow.
The man said something in his own tongue, eyes wide.
“Sasha,” said Dmitrii.
Sasha slid down Tuman’s shoulder and spoke, to Vasya’s surprise, in the same language.
The man shook his head frantically and poured out a stream of syllables.
“He says they have a camp just to the north. A verst, no more,” said Sasha in his measured voice.
“For that,” said Dmitrii to the bandit, stepping back, “I will kill you quickly. Here, Vasya, you have earned it.”
“No, Dmitrii Ivanovich,” Vasya choked, when Dmitrii offered her his own weapon, and gestured, grandly, to where Kasyan held the bandit. She feared she would be sick; Solovey was on the edge of bolting. “I cannot.”
The bandit must have caught the sense of the words, for he bent his head, lips moving in prayer. He was no monster now, no child-thief, but a man afraid, taking his last breaths.
Sasha, though he stood steadily, had gone gray with his wound. He drew breath to speak, but Kasyan spoke first. “Vasilii is only a reedy boy, Dmitrii Ivanovich,” he said, still gripping his captive. “Perhaps he would miss his stroke, and the men have had enough to do today without hearing a man scream and die, gutted.”
Vasya swallowed hard, and the look on her face seemed to convince the prince, for he thrust the blade through the man’s throat, petulantly. He stood an instant with heaving shoulders, recovered his good humor, wiped off the splatter, and said, “All well and good. But we will feed you properly in Moscow, Vasilii Petrovich, and you will be spearing boars at a stroke before long.”
THE BANDITS’ CAMP WAS A SMALL, crude thing. Huts to keep out the cold, and pens for the beasts, but little more. No wall or ditch or palisade; the bandits had not feared attack.
There was no sound and no movement. No smoke from cook-fires, and the whole effect was of chill stillness, grim and sad.
Kasyan spat. “They are gone, I think, Dmitrii Ivanovich. Those that survived.”
“Search everywhere,” said Dmitrii.
In and out of each hut Dmitrii’s men went, searching through the grime and darkness and reek of those men’s lives. Vasya’s hatred began to flake away, leaving only a faint sickness behind.
“Nothing,” said Dmitrii, when the last place was searched. “They are dead or fled.”
“It was well fought, Gosudar,” said Kasyan. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his matted hair. “I do not think they will trouble us again.” Unexpectedly he turned to Vasya. “Why so troubled, Vasilii Petrovich?”
“We never found their leader,” Vasya said. She cast her gaze once more about the squalid encampment. “The man who commanded them in the forest, when I stole the children back.”
Kasyan looked taken aback. “What sort of man is this leader?”
Vasya described him. “I looked for him in the battle, and among the dead,” she concluded. “I could not easily forget his face. But where is he?”
“Fled,” said Kasyan promptly. “Lost in the forest, and hungry already, if he is not dead. Do not worry, boy. We will set fire to this place. Even if this captain lives, he will not easily find more men to go adventuring in the wild. It is over.”