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On the other side of the hearth, Alyosha said something and laughed. Vasya was laughing, too. The sunlight shone through her hair and lit the freckles adorning the bridge of her nose.
Gawky, Konstantin thought. Clumsy, half-grown. But half the house watches to see what she will do next. “Vasya!” Pyotr called again, more sharply.
She left off whispering and came toward them. She wore a green dress. Her hair had loosened at the temples and curled a little about her brows, beneath her red and yellow kerchief. She is ugly, thought Konstantin, and then wondered at himself. What was it to him if a girl was ugly?
“Father?” said Vasya.
“Father Konstantin wishes to go into the wood,” said Pyotr. “He is looking for colors. You will go with him. You will show him where the dye-plants grow.”
The look she threw the priest was not the simper or shy glance of a maiden; it was transparent as sunlight, bright and curious. “Yes, Father,” she said. And, to Konstantin: “At dawn tomorrow, I think, Batyushka. It is best to harvest before full light.”
Anna Ivanovna took the moment to ladle more stew into Konstantin’s bowl. “By your leave,” she said.
He did not take his eyes off Vasya. Why couldn’t some man of the village help him find his pigments? Why the green-eyed witch? Abruptly he realized he was glaring. The brightness had faded from the girl’s face. Konstantin recalled himself. “My thanks, devushka.” He sketched the sign of the cross in the air between them.
Vasya smiled suddenly. “Tomorrow, then,” she said.
“Run along, Vasya,” said Anna, a little shrill. “The holy father can have no more need of you.”
THERE WAS A MIST on the ground the next morning. The light of the rising sun turned it to fire and smoke, striped with the shadows of trees. The girl greeted Konstantin with a wary, glowing face. She was like a spirit in the haze.
The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya was not like the forest around Moscow. It was wilder and crueler and fairer. The vast trees whispered together overhead, and all around, Konstantin seemed to feel eyes. Eyes…nonsense.
“I know where the wild mint grows,” said Vasya as they followed a thin dirt track. The trees made a cathedral-arch above their heads. The girl’s bare feet were delicate in the dust. She had a skin bag slung across her back. “And there will be elderberries if we are fortunate, and blackberries. Alder for yellow. But that is not enough for the face of a saint. You will paint us icons, Batyushka?”
“I have the red earth, the powdered stones, the black metal. I even have the lapis-dust to make the Virgin’s veil. But I have no green or yellow or violet,” said Konstantin. Belatedly he heard the eagerness in his own voice.
“Those we can find,” said Vasya. She skipped like a child. “I have never seen an icon painted. Neither has anyone else. We will all come and beg you for prayers, that we might stare as you work.”
He had known folk to do just that. In Moscow, they thronged about his icons…
“You are human after all,” said Vasya, watching the thoughts cross his face. “I wondered. You are like an icon yourself sometimes.”
He did not know what she’d seen on his face and was angry at himself. “You wonder too much, Vasilisa Petrovna. Better to stay quiet at home with your little sister.”
“You are not the first to tell me that,” said Vasya without rancor. “But if I did, who would go with you at dawn to find bits of leaves? Here—”
They stopped for birch, and again for wild mustard. The girl was deft with her small knife. The sun rose higher, burning away the mist.
“I asked you a question yesterday when I should not,” said Vasya, when the lacy mustard-greens were tucked in her bag. “But I will ask again today, and you will please forgive a girl’s eagerness, Batyushka. I love my brother and my sister. It is long since we have had news of either. My brother is called Brother Aleksandr now.”
The priest’s mouth narrowed. “I know of him,” he said, after a brief hesitation. “There was a scandal when he took his vows under the name of his birth.”
Vasya half-smiled. “Our mother chose that name for him, and my brother was always stubborn.”
Rumors of Brother Aleksandr’s impious intransigence on the matter had spread throughout Muscovy. But, Konstantin reminded himself, monastic vows were not a subject for maidens. The girl had fastened her great eyes on his face. Konstantin began to feel uncomfortable. “Brother Aleksandr came to Moscow for the coronation of Dmitrii Ivanovich. It is said he has gained a certain renown for his ministry in the villages,” the priest added stiffly.
“And my sister?” said Vasya.
“The Princess of Serpukhov is honored for her piety and for her strong children,” Konstantin said, wishing an end to the conversation.
Vasya spun around with a little whoop of satisfaction. “I worry for them,” she said. “Father does, too, though he pretends not. Thank you, Batyushka.” And she turned on him a face all lit from within, so that Konstantin was startled and unwillingly fascinated. His expression grew colder. There was a small silence. The path widened and they walked abreast.
“My father said you have been to the ends of the earth,” said Vasya. “To Tsargrad, and the palace of a thousand kings. To the Church of Holy Wisdom.”
“Yes,” said Konstantin.
“Will you tell me of it?” she said. “Father says that at dusk the angels sing. And that the Tsar rules all men of God, as though he were God himself. That he has roomfuls of gems and a thousand servants.”
Her question took him aback. “Not angels,” Konstantin said slowly. “Men only, but men with voices that would not shame angels. At nightfall they light a hundred thousand candles, and everywhere there is gold and music…”
He stopped abruptly.
“It must be like heaven,” Vasya said.
“Yes,” said Konstantin. Memory had him by the throat: gold and silver, music, learned men and freedom. The forest seemed to choke him. “It is not a fit subject for girls,” he added.
Vasya lifted a brow. They came upon a blackberry bush. Vasya plucked a handful. “You did not want to come here, did you?” she said, around the blackberries. “We have no music or lights, and precious few people. Can you not go away again?”
“I go where God sends me,” Konstantin said, coldly. “If my work is here, then I will stay here.”
“And what is your work, Batyushka?” said Vasya. She had stopped eating blackberries. For an instant, her glance darted to the trees overhead.
Konstantin followed her eyes, but there was nothing there. An odd feeling crept up his spine. “To save souls,” he said. He could count the freckles on her nose. If ever a girl needed saving, it was this one. The blackberries had stained her lips and her hands.
Vasya half-smiled. “Are you going to save us, then?”
“If God gives me strength, I will save you.”
“I am only a country girl,” said Vasya. She reached again into the blackberry bush, wary of thorns. “I have never seen Tsargrad, or angels, or heard the voice of God. But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. We have never needed saving before.”
