Vasya yanked the necklace down so that it lay gripped in her hand, chain dangling, broken. “Why?”
For a moment, she thought he would not answer. Then he said, “Long ago, men dreamed me to life, to give a face to the cold and the dark. They set me to rule over them.” His glance strayed beyond hers. “But—the world wound on. The monks came with vellum and ink, with songs and icons, and I diminished. Now I am only a fairy tale for bad children.” He looked at the blue jewel. “I cannot die, but I can fade. I can forget and be forgotten. But—I am not ready to forget. So I bound myself to a human girl, with power in her blood, and her strength made me strong again.” A flush of blue washed his pale eyes. “I chose you, Vasya.”
Vasya felt very far from herself. This, then, was the bond between them, not shared adventure, wry affection, or even the fire he might set in her flesh, but this—thing. This jewel, this not-magic. She thought of the pale wisps of chyerti, fading in their bell-bound world, and how her hand, her words, her gifts could make them briefly real again.
“Is that why you brought me to your house in the forest?” Vasya whispered. “Why you fought my nightmares and gave me presents? Why you—kissed me in the dark? Because I was to be your worshipper? Your—your slave? It was all a scheme to make yourself strong?”
“You are no slave, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he snapped.
When she was silent, he went on, more gently. “I have had enough of those. It was emotions I needed from you—feelings.”
“Worship,” retorted Vasya. “Poor frost-demon. All your poor believers turned to newer gods, and you were left groping for the hearts of stupid girls who don’t know better. That is why you came so often, and why you left again. That is why you bade me wear the jewel and remember you.”
“I saved your life,” he returned, harsh now. “Twice. You have carried that jewel, and your strength has sustained me. Is it not a fair exchange?”
Vasya could not speak. She barely heard him. He had used her. She was a doom to her kin. Her family lay in ruins—and her heart.
“Find another,” she said, surprised at the calm in her voice. “Find another to wear your charm. I cannot.”
“Vasya—no, you must listen—”
“I will not!” she cried. “I want nothing of you. I want no one. The world is wide; surely you will find another. Perhaps this time you will not use her unknowing.”
“If you leave me now,” he answered, just as evenly, “you will be in terrible danger. The sorcerer will find you.”
“Help me, then,” she said. “Tell me what Kasyan means to do.”
“I cannot see. He is wound about with magic, to keep me out. Better to leave, Vasya.”
Vasya shook her head. “Perhaps I will die here, as others have died. But I will not die your creature.”
Somehow the wind had risen in the space between her heartbeats, and to Vasya it seemed they stood alone in the snow, that the stinks and the shapes of the city were gone. There were only herself and the frost-demon, in the moonlight. The wind shrieked and gibbered all around them, yet her plait did not stir in the gusts.
“Let me go,” she said. “I am no one’s slave.”
Her hand opened and the sapphire fell; he caught it. It melted in his hand until it was not a jewel at all but a palmful of cold water.
Abruptly, the wind died and all around was churned-up snow and hulking palaces.
She turned away from him. The dooryard of the prince of Serpukhov had never seemed so large, the snow so deep. She did not look back.
24.
Witch
After the horse-race, six of Dmitrii’s men-at-arms took Sasha to the monastery of the Archangel, where they put him in a small cell. There they left him, to walk the circle of his own thoughts. These centered chiefly on his sister, stripped and shamed before all Moscow, but her courage unbowed, her care only for him.
“You will be sent before the bishops,” Andrei told him that night, when supper was brought. Then, darkly, he added, “And put to the question. If you are not slain in the dark; Dmitrii might well come and cut your head off himself. He is that angry. His grandfather would have. I will do what I can, but that is not much.”
“Father, if I die,” said Sasha, putting out a hand just before the door closed, “you must do what you can for my sister. Both my sisters. Olga did what she did unwillingly, and Vasya is—”
“I do not want to know,” Andrei put in acidly, “what your Vasya is. If you were not vowed to God, you would be dead already, for the lies you told on that witch’s behalf.”
“At least send word to Father Sergei,” Sasha said. “He loves me well.”
“That I will do,” said Andrei, but he was already walking away.
THE BELLS RANG OUTSIDE, the footsteps passed, the rumors swirled. Jagged, incoherent prayers rose to Sasha’s lips and broke off again, half-voiced. Dusk had melted into night, and Moscow was drunk and cheerful under a blaze of new-risen moonlight when footsteps sounded in the cloister, and Sasha’s door rattled.
He got to his feet and put his back to a wall, for what good it would do.
The door opened, softly. Andrei’s fat, anxious face showed again in the gap, beard bristling. Beside him stood a sturdy young man in a hood.
An instant of disbelieving stillness, and then Sasha strode forward. “Rodion! What do you here?” For Andrei carried a torch in one anxious hand; by its light Sasha saw his friend’s face worn all to rags, a mark of frostbite on his nose.
Andrei looked angry, exasperated, afraid. “Brother Rodion has come hotfoot from the Lavra,” he said, “with news that concerns the Grand Prince of Moscow.” A pause. “And your friend, Kasyan Lutovich.”
“I have been to Bashnya Kostei,” put in Rodion. He was looking uneasily at his friend, in the cold and narrow cell. “I rode two horses to death to bring you the news.”
Sasha had never seen such a look in Rodion’s face before. “Come in, then.”
He was in no position to command, but they entered the cell without a word and fastened the door behind them.
Rodion proceeded, softly, to tell a tale of dust and bones and horrors in the dark. “It deserves its name,” he finished. “Bashnya Kostei. The Tower of Bones. I do not know what manner of man is this Kasyan Lutovich, but his house is no dwelling for a living man. And if that weren’t enough, it was Kasyan who—”
“Paid Chelubey to pass himself off as an emissary, to get his men into the city,” finished Sasha, thinking with a pang of Vasya. “I know. Rodya—you must leave at once. Do not say you’ve seen me. Go to the Grand Prince. Tell him—”
“What emissary? Kasyan paid those bandits to burn villages,” Rodion interrupted. “I found their agent in Chudovo, their go-between to buy their blades and horses.”
Rodion had been busy. “Hire bandits to burn his own?” Sasha asked sharply. “To profit in girls?”
“I suppose,” said Rodion. His frost-nipped face was grim.
Andrei stood silent near the door.