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Vasya scowled. Katya saw, swallowed the tears back, and finished, creaking, “I—I would betroth myself to him. I think. Later. In the spring. But I want to go home to my mother, and have her consent, and finish my wedding-things in the proper way. I promised Anyushka and Lenochka that I would take them home. But I cannot take them home alone, so I don’t know what to do—”
Vasya found to her chagrin that she could no more bear Katya’s tears than she could her own small sister’s. What would Vasilii Petrovich do? “I will speak to this boy for you, as is right,” said Vasya gently. “And then I will see you home.” She thought a moment. “I and my brother, the holy monk.” Vasya hoped devoutly that Sasha’s chaste presence would be enough for Katya’s mother.
Katya paused again. “You will? Just— You will?”
“My word on it,” Vasya said, with finality. “Now I want my breakfast.”
VASYA DISCOVERED A SECLUDED latrine that she used with the speed of outright terror, and afterward made her way to the refectory. She strode in with more confidence than she felt. The long, low room was full of seemly hush, and Dmitrii and Kasyan were eating bread dipped in something that steamed. Vasya smelled it and swallowed.
“Vasya!” Dmitrii roared affectionately when he saw her. “Come, sit, eat. We must hear service, give thanks to God for our victory, and then—Moscow!”
“Have you heard the talk of the peasants this morning?” Kasyan asked her as she accepted a bowl. “They are calling you Vasilii the Brave now, and saying that you delivered them all from devils.”
Vasya almost choked on her soup.
Dmitrii, laughing, pounded her between the shoulder-blades. “You earned it!” he cried. “Raiding the bandit-camp, fighting on that stallion—although you must learn to wield a spear, Vasya—you will soon be as great a legend as your brother.”
“God be with you,” said Sasha, overhearing. He walked in with both his hands thrust through his sleeves: a very monk. He had gone early to prayer with his brothers. Now he said austerely, “I hope not. Vasilii the Brave. That is a heavy name for one so young.” But his gray eyes gleamed. It occurred to Vasya that he might be enjoying, despite himself, the risks of their deception. She certainly was, she realized with some surprise. The danger in every word she spoke, among these great people, was like wine in her veins, like water in a hot country. Perhaps, she thought, that was why Sasha left home. Not for God, not to wound Father, but because he wanted surprises around each road’s turning, and he would never get that at Lesnaya Zemlya. She eyed her brother in wonder.
Then she took another swallow of soup and said, “I must return the three peasant girls to their village before I go to Moscow. I promised.”
Dmitrii snorted and quaffed his beer. “Why? There will be folk going out today; the girls can go with them. You needn’t trouble yourself.”
Vasya said nothing.
Dmitrii grinned suddenly, reading her face. “No? You look just like your brother when he has made up his mind and is being polite. Is it that you want the elder girl—what is her name? Don’t look prudish, Sasha; how old were you when you started tumbling peasant girls? Well, I owe you a debt, Vasya. Letting you play the hero to a pretty child is little enough. It is not too far out of our way. Eat. We ride tomorrow.”
THE NIGHT BEFORE THEY left the Lavra, Brother Aleksandr knocked on his master’s door. “Come in,” said Sergei.
Sasha entered to find the old hegumen sitting beside a stove, looking into the flames. An untouched cup sat beside him, and a heel of bread, a little gnawed by rats.
“Father bless,” said Sasha, stepping on a rat-tail just poking out beneath the cot. He heaved the beast up, broke its neck, and dropped it outside in the snow.
“May the Lord bless you,” said Sergei, smiling.
Sasha crossed the room and knelt at the hegumen’s feet.
“My father is dead,” he said, without ceremony.
Sergei sighed. “God grant him peace,” he said, and made the sign of the cross. “I wondered what had happened, to send your sister out into the wild.”
Sasha said nothing.
“Tell me, my son,” said Sergei.
Sasha slowly repeated the story Vasya had told him, staring all the while into the fire.
When he had finished, Sergei was frowning. “I am old,” he said. “Perhaps my wits are failing. But—”
“It is all very unlikely,” finished Sasha shortly. “I can get no more out of her. But Pyotr Vladimirovich would never—”
Sergei sat back in his chair. “Call him your father, my son. God will not begrudge it, and nor do I. Pyotr was a good man. I have rarely seen one so grieved to part with his son, yet he gave me no angry word, after the first. And no, he did not strike me as a fool. What do you mean to do with this sister of yours?”
Sasha was sitting at his master’s feet like a boy, with his arms around his knees. The firelight erased some of the marks of war and travel and long lonely prayer. Sasha sighed. “Take her to Moscow. What else? My sister Olga can take her quietly back into the terem, and Vasilii Petrovich may disappear. Perhaps on the journey, Vasya will tell me the truth.”
“Dmitrii will not like it, if he finds out,” Sergei said. “What if your—if Vasya refuses to be hidden away?”
Sasha looked up quickly, a line between his brows. Outside a hush lay on the monastery, save for a monk’s single voice, raised in plainchant. The villagers had all gone, save for the three girl-children, who would depart on the morrow with Dmitrii’s cavalcade.
“She is as like you as brother and sister can be,” continued Sergei. “I saw that from the first. Would you go quiet into the terem? After all the galloping about, the saving girls, the slaying bandits?”
Sasha laughed at the image. “She is a girl,” he said. “It is different.”
Sergei lifted a brow. “We are all children of God,” he said, mildly.
Sasha, frowning, made no answer. Then he said, changing the subject, “What think you of Vasya’s tale—of seeing a bandit-captain that we can now find no trace of?”
“Well, either this captain is dead or he is not,” said Sergei practically. “If he is dead, God grant him peace. If he is not, I think we will discover it.” The monk spoke placidly, but his eyes gleamed in the firelight. In his remote monastery, Sergei contrived to hear a good deal. Before he died, the holy Aleksei himself had wanted Sergei to be his successor as Metropolitan of all Moscow.
“I beg you will send Rodion to Moscow, if you have word of the bandit-captain after we are gone,” said Sasha, reluctantly. “And…”
Sergei grinned. He had only four teeth. “And now are you wondering who is this red-haired lord that young Dmitrii Ivanovich has befriended?”
“As you say, Batyushka,” said Sasha. He sat back against his hands, then recalled his wounded forearm and snatched it up with a grunt of pain. “I had never heard of Kasyan Lutovich. I who have traveled the length and breadth of Rus’. And then suddenly he comes riding out of the woods, bigger than life, with his marvelous clothes, and his marvelous horses.”
“Nor I,” said Sergei, very thoughtfully. “And I ought to have.”
