11.

We Are Not All Born Lords’ Sons

“Well met, Kasyan Lutovich!” called Dmitrii. “We looked for you sooner.” A careless scarlet splatter covered one cheek and crusted in his yellow beard; there was blood on his ax and on the neck of his horse. His eyes were very bright.

Kasyan smiled back and sheathed his sword. “I beg you will forgive me, Dmitrii Ivanovich.”

“This time,” retorted the Grand Prince, and they laughed. Of the bandits, only the dead and the badly wounded lay huddled in the snow; the rest had fled. Kasyan’s men were already cutting the wounded men’s throats. Vasya, shaken, did not watch; she concentrated on her hands, binding up her brother’s forearm. The cold breeze still whispered through the clearing. Right before the bandits appeared, she could have sworn she heard Morozko’s voice. Vasya, he had said. Vasya. And then the wind had come screaming, the wind that turned the bandits’ arrows. Vasya even thought she had seen the white mare, with the frost-demon on her back, turning the blades that came nearest to touching her.

But perhaps she was mistaken.

The breeze died. The tree-shadows seemed to thicken. Vasya turned her head, and he was there.

Barely. A faint, black-and-bone presence stepped softly into the clearing, its eyes disconcertingly familiar.

Morozko stilled beneath her glance. This was not the frost-demon, this was his other, older self, black-cloaked, pale, long-fingered. He was here for the dead. Suddenly the sunlight seemed muted. She felt his presence in the blood on the earth, in the touch of the cold air on his face, old and still and strong.

She drew a deep breath.

He inclined his head slowly.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the cold morning, too low for anyone to hear.

But he heard. His eyes found hers, and for an instant he looked—almost—real. Then he turned away, and there was no man there at all, but only the cold shadow.

Biting her lip, Vasya finished binding her brother’s arm. When she looked back, Morozko had gone. The dead men lay in their blood, and the sun shone gaily down.

A clear voice was speaking. “Who is that boy,” asked Kasyan, “who looks so much like Brother Aleksandr?”

“Why, this is our young hero,” returned Dmitrii, raising his voice. “Vasya!”

Vasya touched Sasha’s arm, said, “This must be cleaned later, with hot water, and bound with honey,” and then turned.

“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.